Twenty five contestants competing in the Miss Poland 2009 contest are presently touring Thailand. They will be here from 5th-14th October 2009. Some of the major locations that they will visit include Bangkok, Pattaya, Phuket and Krabi. As well as touring tourist attractions, they will also take part in activities such as Thai cooking, traditional spa treatments and water sports. During their two week stay, a film crew will be shooting a documentary which will be shown during the live telecast of the Miss Poland contest on 24th October.

This morning, the 25 finalists of Miss Poland 2009 visited Ancient Siam in Samut Prakan. We received our invite yesterday to join their tour of the park. We didn't have to be asked twice. We quickly cleared our schedule for today and drove over to Ancient Siam. As we arrived at the entrance, the lovely ladies were just boarding one of the trams to start their tour. There were also quite a few local media covering this event. I am sure it is not every day that they see such beautiful ladies with long legs. Some of them were taller than me.

During the tour we stopped at the Folk Museum where they were welcomed by the Director of Ancient Siam. The contestants were presented with jasmine garlands and were then entertained with some traditional dancing from the North-east of Thailand. They ladies seemed to enjoy the show and took plenty of photographs. Once it was over they also wanted to have their picture taken with the dancers which of course thrilled the young Thai girls. The next stop was the Dusit Maha Prasat Palace where they took turns speaking to the camera for film segments that will be shown later during the live telecast.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) are hoping that this exposure to Thailand during the beauty contest will encourage more people to visit from Poland. In 2008, Polish visitors totalled 27,800, representing an increase of 29.36 per cent. They had an average length of stay of 12 days, and average daily expenditure of 4,200 Baht per person. This resulted in approximately 6.5 billion baht in tourism revenue and foreign exchange earnings for the Thai economy. While first-time visitors from Poland opt for Pattaya as their first destination of choice, beach and island resorts in the Andaman region have proven to be a favourite with return visitors. Samui, Krabi and Koh Lanta are gaining popularity.

We have posted more pictures over at the Samut Prakan Forums and I will also post a video soon. Visit our website at www.Paknam.com for online weekly news about Samut Prakan Province. Starting this Friday we have the annual Temple Fair in the city that lasts for ten days and nights. This is the longest running fair in the country. I will be posting plenty of pictures and news about this here at www.thai-blogs.com and over at the forums. Samut Prakan is closer enough to Bangkok to come here as a day tour.