Thai Super Model and Actress, Paula Taylor, Chosen for the Amazing Race: Asia

This week, the new teams were announced for the second season of the hit show, Amazing Race Asia. This version of the popular American show, The Amazing Race, has 10 teams running the race around Asia for a $100,000 prize. The team representing Thailand was profiled and, surprisingly, the very famous Thai actress and model Paula Taylor (aka Punlapa Taylor) is one of the members of the Thai duo. Her team mate is Natasha Monks, who works for a mining company, and is also her best friend. The two have known each other since they were little children.

Paula, age 24, is probably the most well-known and most popular actress in Thailand. She appears on magazine covers every month, is featured in Thai gossip magazines daily, is a VJ on Channel V, and her face and body are used to promote cell phones, clothing, make up and numerous other products. In Bangkok, you can't go to any sky train or underground train station without seeing enormous posters of Paula plastered all over the walls.

Thai men and women love her. The men love her because she's sexy and smiles all the time. Women love her because she's sweet and nice and they want to be like her. She is also very beautiful, so her involvement in the Amazing Race Asia should definitely bring in the male viewers.

Paula is what the Thais call 'luk kreung', which means half-Thai, half-Western. Her mother is Thai and her father is English. Her parents divorced when she was small and she spent much of her life in Australia with her mother. She speaks fluent English although with a very odd accent, which does make it difficult to understand what she's saying sometimes. She comes across as being relatively intelligent though and she is in great physical shape, so she and her partner could be a team to reckon with during the race. They both have charming smiles and, as the Thais know, a smile can save the day in many situations.