From the Land of Smiles...

military academy and pattaya weekend

Hey Everybody,

This weekend I went away with a family that is friends with my host family…It was…interesting, that’s for sure, we did some really cool things…but I’m definitely not traveling with them again…I ended up having to pay alot for the trip...more than I think I should have paid...anyways, I can't afford the way they travel...

But i'll tell you about the weekend...

The first day we all crammed into a car…4 ppl In the back seat (not comfortable) and drove for a few hours to get to the Military Academy. It was a huge property with lots of buildings…then we drove up to the lake…there were lots of people and cars around and these tower things…

It was really cool…first we put a harness on, climbed up a small tower, and then were clipped onto a rope…then we slid down the rope (over the water)…it was really fun. At the other side there was another tower and we did the same thing to get back to the other side…Then Ney and I went kayaking…but only for a few minutes, because it started to rain…after we got off the water the rain stopped, so we all went and played paintball…It was fun, but 3 of the kids were under 10, so I didn’t really want to shoot at them in case I hurt them. After that we all piled back into the cars for a few minutes and then stopped at a big tower…We did the rope sliding thing again…but this time it was from a much higher tower…and this time we didn’t just slide the whole time, there was an initial drop…I admit it, I was a bit nervous…but it was fun. After that we went into the building next to the tower and did a virtual target shooting thing…it was cool too, but it wasn’t that great…

That was the end of our activities for the day and now we all got into the cars (this time we were in a van with a dvd player) and made the many hour drive up to Pa Ngam mountain lodge where we would be staying the night…The lodge was beautiful...but we were a little cramped sleeping wise…5 girls in one room and 4 boys in the other…

In the morning I thought that we were leaving but after packing up and everything we drove less than 5 minutes down the drive and I was told that we were going to rent motorcycles and drive around…but then we ended up buying tickets for the “water adventure” instead. So we changed into out swimsuits with clothes on top (they’re so modest here…I wanted to get a tan, lol) and walked down the hill to the lake (I’m almost positive it was man made)…It was actually pretty fun…we had to walk across these rope things, and run across these mats, and hold onto handlebars and slide down a rope, and jumping off a tower…and swimming of course…

After that we got into the cars and made the long drive to Pattaya. We got to Pattaya that night, just in time to go for dinner at a seafood restaurant over the water…They had the biggest lobsters I’ve ever seen! I don’t really like Pattaya all that much though…it was incredibly touristy and everywhere you looked there were dirty old men (i.e. Old white men with young thai girls…I’m sure you get the idea)…and it doesn’t seem to bother people that they’re everywhere…I’m sure that it would be a fun town…lots of bars and restaurants and clubs…plus the beach…but it doesn’t seem like my type of place…

Then we checked into our hotel…it was huge, and apparently had a really big swimming pool, and was near the beach, but I couldn’t see anything from our balcony because it was too dark… Then we all went out and went to a mall and drove around Pattaya before going back to the hotel and going to bed.
I woke up really early in the morning because Ney’s mother was up and walking around…Then Ney and I got up and found out that all the kids wanted to go swimming, so I put on my swimsuit and got ready to go down to the pool…I was the only one in a bikini…but I didn’t bring my 1 piece with me…and I wanted a chance to (finally) get a tan…Anyways, so this place is crazy…as you’ll see in the pictures…unfortunately, the big pool wasn’t open yet, so we swam in the little one…then we went up for breakfast. Yay! They had a buffet and it had western food! I got to have French Toast and pancakes, I was so excited! Unfortunately the French toast was disappointing, but the pancakes were good…Then we went swimming in the big pool (I didn’t go swimming though, I was too full to move, lol) so I layed around in the sun…

After that we went up, showered , changed and packed up to leave…and then after we loaded the cars up we went back downstairs and the kids all went on the rides. I didn’t though because my stomach wasn’t feeling the greatest (probably because of the insane amounts of breakfast that I ate…I couldn’t resist). I also missed out on going on the crazy rope things again (this time from the top of the huge hotel tower)…Oh well…

Finally we left, stopping on the way for lunch and to get a new tire on the van (it got a flat)…and then I finally got home around dinner time that night…it was an extremely busy weekend…

I hope you enjoy the pictures

-Lauren

posted by Lauren @ 1:05 PM