Today I went with Lakshmi and Eldar (other roadies) to the Siracha Tiger Zoo (all photos link). I went to this two years ago with Troy, but it was fun so I decided to go again. I am glad I did. We saw the Elephant Show. Its your typical elephant show...elephants tight rope walking, playing basketball, dancing, playing with hula hoops, and giving massages to random people out in the audience. Hmmmm that girl looks familiar?!


Visited the "Scorpion Queen"......its a lady who lets tons of scorpions crawl on her. Yuck.After that we saw the Crocodile Show and the Tiger Show, nothing new on those. Your standard crocodiles deciding not to eat their trainers while they stick their head in their mouth. Tigers jumping through hoops/standing up/dancing for us.
As always my favorite part of this zoo is that you can play with the baby tigers. For a small fee of course! We got to play with some crocodiles and just happen to be there when some of them were getting "hatched". The staff would break them out of the eggs then cut their little umbilical cords, rinse them and put them in a pond. We got to watch this but we were not allowed to take photos of it.
And also this time when we got our pictures taken with the monkey I got a kiss from one of them....and he slipped me the tongue! (shhhh don't tell Troy I got kissed!). Love the big guy in the yellow--wearing a Guns N Roses shirt, good taste!

Today I went with Lakshmi and Eldar (other roadies) to the Siracha Tiger Zoo (all photos link). I went to this two years ago with Troy, but it was fun so I decided to go again. I am glad I did. We saw the Elephant Show. Its your typical elephant show...elephants tight rope walking, playing basketball, dancing, playing with hula hoops, and giving massages to random people out in the audience. Hmmmm that girl looks familiar?!


Visited the "Scorpion Queen"......its a lady who lets tons of scorpions crawl on her. Yuck.After that we saw the Crocodile Show and the Tiger Show, nothing new on those. Your standard crocodiles deciding not to eat their trainers while they stick their head in their mouth. Tigers jumping through hoops/standing up/dancing for us.
As always my favorite part of this zoo is that you can play with the baby tigers. For a small fee of course! We got to play with some crocodiles and just happen to be there when some of them were getting "hatched". The staff would break them out of the eggs then cut their little umbilical cords, rinse them and put them in a pond. We got to watch this but we were not allowed to take photos of it.
And also this time when we got our pictures taken with the monkey I got a kiss from one of them....and he slipped me the tongue! (shhhh don't tell Troy I got kissed!). Love the big guy in the yellow--wearing a Guns N Roses shirt, good taste!

Went to the Siracha Tiger Zoo again (was there once in 2006). Got to play with few animals.
The monkey gave me some tongue with his kiss!

A group of us (Mike, Hakan, Pulkit, Natalia, Vamshi, Jeff, Zudtky) all went to the cable lake skiing area in town (all photos link). For people who don't know what that is....its a man made lake about 4 feet deep that had cables that go in a circle above the lake. So if you fall anywhere in the lake you just get out and walk on the path that circles it, back to the dock. Every 10-15 seconds there is a hook with a rope on it that you can ski behind. The thing that makes this more difficult is that you have to do a dock start! This turned out to be harder then I thought it would be. I didn't do well at it. I did go knee boarding for the first time though. Its 300 Baht (about $8) for 2hrs of use....this includes skies/kneeboard/salom skies, you can rent a wake board for a couple dollars more. Two hours doesn't seem like much but after that two hours I was very sore! You can ski so much more when your not waiting for the boat to turn around to get you and to straighten the rope out, etc, etc. A couple of us knew how to ski, but there were more that didn't. Everyone did pretty good for their first or second try! And ALMOST everyone was able to knee board at the very least.....

A group of us (Mike, Hakan, Pulkit, Natalia, Vamshi, Jeff, Zudtky) all went to the cable lake skiing area in town (all photos link). For people who don't know what that is....its a man made lake about 4 feet deep that had cables that go in a circle above the lake. So if you fall anywhere in the lake you just get out and walk on the path that circles it, back to the dock. Every 10-15 seconds there is a hook with a rope on it that you can ski behind. The thing that makes this more difficult is that you have to do a dock start! This turned out to be harder then I thought it would be. I didn't do well at it. I did go knee boarding for the first time though. Its 300 Baht (about $8) for 2hrs of use....this includes skies/kneeboard/salom skies, you can rent a wake board for a couple dollars more. Two hours doesn't seem like much but after that two hours I was very sore! You can ski so much more when your not waiting for the boat to turn around to get you and to straighten the rope out, etc, etc. A couple of us knew how to ski, but there were more that didn't. Everyone did pretty good for their first or second try! And ALMOST everyone was able to knee board at the very least.....

Today we went to a cable ski lake. I have never tried water-skiing off a dock by a pull cable before. I wasn't to good at it either! Anyway I did learn to knee-board though. It was $10/2hrs you got to go as many times as you could-skiing, knee-boarding, wake-boarding, and slalom.

This is the dock you start at.Some of us did better then others.....and a few were just learning!

A Thai massage is much different then a "normal" (Swedish, deep tissue) massage. A Thai massage focuses more on acupressure points in your body and they go deeper then normal. Also they stretch you out while giving the massage. You wear pj's while they give the massage-so you don't have to worry about any "happy ending" offers. You will never feel as relaxed as you do after this massage. Here is my favorite place, it doesn't look special nor is the inside the ambiance that most USA spas have-but they do better work then anywhere I have ever been. (one hour thai massage $6!)Hakan getting walked on during his massageMike getting stretched. I was having my feet worked on when I took this picture.

You may notice I changed settings-you now have to ok that your over 18yrs to view my blog, this is one of the posts that thats do to. This is one of the local "entertainment" clubs. This isn't a go-go bar but instead the equivalent of a Vegas show girl act or the Moulin Rouge. They are nude/partially nude but they do dances/performances. Yes there is nudity in these pictures but not to bad since we were on the second floor. (plus you not suppose to take pictures so I couldn't use a flash)

These first girls are the "filler" girls-they come out when the "entertainment" girls are getting ready. These girls are pretty much just strippers-but instead of giving them dollars you throw ping pong balls at them. They try catching them and who ever gets them turns in them in for money. A ping pong ball is worth 30baht (about 75cents).
Next up for the "entertainment" girls.....the baby oil dancers. (so they get the stage all oily)Then we have the soapy girls.....they get take the soap and clean off the oil during their performance. Now after the soap has washed off the oil the maids come out and clean up the soap-and there you go a clean dance floor and poles! And they each performed for us--entertainment plus cleaning-now thats skill!

Its a boring picture I realize that LOL. But Salley and I went and got facial and microdermabrasion done. Also you can see my new Ruby earring on me and my tiger eye gem necklace I bought yesterday. So here is my picture -fresh faced, no make up on what so ever just some natural glowing after my spa treatment. Oh and I know you want to know what it cost LOL. Well I got a package of 5 seasons of facials and microdermabrasion for a total of $150 . That would cost about $500 + in Chicago. Tomorrow--massages. Which are about $6/hr. I love Thailand!

Well one of the perks of travel is the shopping. As most of you know-I am not a shopper. (sorry mom) Anyway some times you find deals that are so good because its the local thing. In Qatar we got a hand made silk Persian rug for 1/5 of what it would cost in the states. Well today I added to that hot deals list..... a pair of 18k white gold, .61 CT Ruby earrings! Now they are a Thai Ruby which is a deeper pink color and they are beautiful.

Outside of the Russian Restaurant we love here.

This pool is a major upgrade from the Las Vegas pool!
This one is from the 5th floor of the hotel through a window (so it blurry).

Some odd fruit at dinner. Anyone know what it is? The outside is peeled off, the inside is a while almost grape like fruit with a nut in the middle?

** this is a Rambutan!

Well we checked into our hotel about 2am this morning. Slept some and Troy went to work. After work I got to meet some of the crew members that are here. There are several jobs going on right now, so there is about 60 people here! Our largest crew before this was 4 people. So it will be nice to have tons of people to hang out with! Here is some of us at dinner. Starting on the left going clockwise you have....Ben, Me, Troy, Pulkit, Chad, Casey, Sara, our birthday boy, Hakan, and Jeff.

We lost wednesday. How do you lose a day you ask like this....
Tuesday 1pm we leave Chicago to Tokyo, Japan. Its a 13hr flight. Then we have a two hour layover in Tokyo. Then a 7 hr flight from Tokyo to Bangkok, Thialand. And finally a 2 hr drive from Bangkok to Pattaya, Thailand (our home for the next 3-4 months). So 20 hrs on a plane, 2-4 in airports and 2 in a car you take that plus the fact that we fly over the international date line....you actually lose a day of your life. LOL Don't worry we get it back on the way home. These pictures are us in the Tokyo Business Lounge waiting for our next flight.