Thailand Day 2: Rajadamnern Stadium

One the way to Rajadamnern Stadium our van got hit by another truck.  It was a very minor scratch but since it was a business vehicle, the driver had to call and wait for insurance to come.  In the meantime, we all piled out of the van and walked around the corner to the little hole in the wall bar.  The neighborhood we were in reminded me a little of Willets Point in Queens, NY, which was the setting for Chop Shop, an excellent movie if you haven't seen it.

Our Pimped out van complete with laser light show and hello kitty stickers.

This fellow lived in the bar above.

After drinking a round, we decided to just take a cab to the stadium instead of waiting on the insurance.  Dinner was at Likit Restaurant right around the corner from the stadium.  We ate family style; the dishes including chicken, pork neck, a seafood, a catfish dish, Bamboo Shoots, Papaya Salad, and my personal favorite, sticky rice.  Sticky rice is exactly what is sounds like, but the stickiness gives it a textures that sets it apart from other rices.  I ate two baskets full of it, and my fighting name jokingly became Sticky Rice.

 

Sticky Rice!

After Dinner we headed to Rajadamnern stadium.  The weeknight shows are generally don't have as high profile of fights as the weekend, so the crowd was small.  Even so, it was still extremely loud in the stadium due to all the gamblers.  Betting at Thai boxing matches is something very akin to the stock market floor.  Its a bunch of guys yelling and flashing hand signs, and there is no way of knowing what the hell is going on.  They don't just bet on the outcome of the fight either, they'll bet on things like how many knees a fighter will throw in the round or how many times a fighter will get dumped.  The gamblers will even try to communicate with the corners to tell the fighters what to do.  It's insane.

  
This morning we are heading to Wat Po, the Temple of the Reclining Buddha.  From there we'll eat lunch at a local market and then head to Sitsongpeenong for an afternoon training session.

Thailand Day 2: Sasiprapa and Thai Massage

Our first day of training was this morning at Sasiprapa gym.  I was pretty excited as well as a little nervous and it definitely affected my sleep.  I fell asleep at 11:30 and woke up at 3am, lay in bed for an hour wide awake, and decided to just get up at 4am.

The training session at Sasiprapa was exhausting but a lot of fun.  The trainers were all very welcoming and helpful and seemed to enjoy us being there as much as we were.  We started out skipping rope and shadow boxing, then did 4 rounds on the thai pads, bag work, drilled technique, and finished with more bag work.  The humidity is just crazy, and by the time the session is over you're just soaked from head to toe.  Afterward we took a Thai style shower where you scoop water from a tub with a bowl and pour it over yourself.  My first experience training at an authentic Thai gym was amazing.

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My pad holder

Here's a short video of Rungravee kicking the Thai Pads.  Rungravee is a top 3 ranked fighter.  Dude is a beast.

After training we headed to one of the million food stall in Thailand for lunch.

Noodle and Mushroom dish.  I ate 2 of these.

Chinese Broccoli and Mushroom Dish

 

After Lunch we headed to the Health Land Spa for some traditional thai massage.  The best way I can describe it is part pleasure part torture.  It was really interesting how much they use their entire bodies.  They basically get on mattress on the floor with you and proceed to dig into your muscles, contort you, and stand on you.  I don't know if I really enjoyed it, but is was a good experiance.  And cheap.  A 2 hour massage is like 700 baht, about $23 dollars; $26-27 with tip.

Tonight is dinner and then we head to Rajadomnern stadium to watch some Muay Thai fights.  I'll probably be too tired to post afterwards, but will hopefully get some photos up tomorrow.

Thailand Day 1: Wandering and TUFF Camp

My flight into Bangkok was 30 minutes late which killed my plan of taking the train into downtown.  We got in at 11:20 and by the time I got through passport control and got my luggage it was after midnight when the trains stop running.  I therefore had to take a taxi.  The driver certainly wasted no time, going 140km/hr+ (85-90mph) on the highway.  The ride cost 500 baht with tip+tolls, which is about $17; not bad, but the train would probably have been about a fifth of that.    Got checked into my hotel, showered and went to bed around 2am.

I was planning to get up at 8am, but was wide awake at 6:30.  After having breakfast, the plan was to walk around, explore, and shop.  I wanted to a couple of the Muay Thai gear shops at Lumpini stadium as well as the MBK megamall.  All in all I had about an 8 mile Journey planned out.  Walking around in Bangkok for the first time is definitely an assault on your senses.  There is so much going on audibly, visually, and aromatically; plus you are constantly aware of the heat and humidity. A few things I observed:

-Damn its hot and humid.  It only took about 2 blocks before I was a soaked in sweat.
-Traffic is ridiculous.  You have to be on your A game when you cross any street or intersection; no one seems to give a shit about pedestrians.
-Street food is everywhere!  There is someone selling something on almost every block.
-So many different smells too.  It'll go from street/fried/spicy food, to citrus fruit, to BO, to incense in a matter of feet.  It's pretty amazing.
-There a NO trashcans anywhere along the streets.  I ended up walking about 4 miles with an empty cup and ended up throwing it away at a hotel.  You would think that with all the street vending, there would be trash cans everywhere.  Not So.

When I got to Lumpini stadium, the shops were all closed, so I figured I'd head to the MBK megamall.  It too was closed until 10, so i decided to head to a shop I had read about online called Action Zone that sold Muay Thai gear and was right down the street from MBK. The lady at Action Zone was so incredibly nice! I of course was a sweaty mess from just having walked 4 miles to get there.  The first thing she does is get me a frozen wet wipe and a bottle of water, it was much appreciated.  Then she helped me find some shorts, hand wraps and bag gloves, gave me a discount and threw in a free towel.  So awesome.

After action zone, I stopped into the MBK megamall which is an enormous 5 story mall.  It's the first mall i'd been to where I was afraid of heights.  The escalators between floors go right over the large open courtyard.  It had everything from regular mall stores to street vendor type places selling knock off clothes and electronics. 

So I'm getting behind here, as it's already halfway through Day 2 and I haven't finished Day 1.  From now on I'm going to try to include more pictures and not ramble so much about boring shit.  I actually lost most of my pictures from this day because my memory card crashed.

So Day 1 finished up with me meeting the 3 other guys I'd be training well as the guy (Nopadon) who set this all up and planned everything. They are also a couple of filmers along for the trip as well, so it should be well documented. They are all amazing guys who are all laid back and a lot of fun.  Nopadon knows so much about Muay Thai, it's history, and Thailand history as well, so it's great having him around. It's going to be a fun week and a half.

Arriving at the TUFF camp

From the hotel we headed to the TUFF training camp for a welcome dinner and grill.  The TUFF guys were all super nice and accomodating and we got to meet Orono "Black Superman" who is a Muay Thai legend.  I'll wrap it up with some photos.

Orono and I

First International Flight

I haven't made it to Thailand yet, but I've made it to Tokyo.  I've got about 7 hours to kill here at Narita airport before my flight leaves for Bangkok.  Here's 10 things I've learned from my first international flight:

1) 13 hours is a long time on an airplane.

2) The plane smells like moth balls and farts for the majority of that 13 hours.  bummer.

3) When the pilot says they'll be serving brunch, he means a granola bar.

4) Got a boxed ham sandwich and nothing else about halfway through the flight. I ate it since I was starving.

5) When they finally gave us a real meal 11.5 hours into the flight, I opted for cheese pizza. It was surprisingly good.  Came with three bites of pineapple, one strawberry and 2 milano cookies.

6) Contrary to what I originally thought, I actually flew west from NY to Tokyo crossing the International Date Line and essentially losing a day.

7) My ass hurts more than anything.

8) The Japanese have a coin with a hole in the middle.  Its the 5 yen.   They also have a single coin worth 500yen (which will hardly buy you a large coffee).

9) The Japanese are super friendly and smile a lot (at least the ones at the airport). I dig it.

10) Japan Airlines > American Airlines.  While checking in at American, I waited in line for about 30 minutes after checking in at the self service kiosk as they were understaffed.  The lady at the counter then can't find my baggage ticket and asks me if I'm sure I'm going to Bangkok as she doesn't see a Bangkok ticket.  Uh yeah, I'm pretty sure.  She goes over to the other computer to look, and then asks me to start looking through the pile at her desk.  So I reach across the counter and eventually find it myself.  At the Japan Airline counter, there was no line and the lady checked me in literally in 30 seconds.  She then thanked me for waiting. No Problem.  

Alright, I'm going to go walk around a bit to give my butt a rest before my 5 hour flight to Bangkok.  I'll include the only picture I got today as we were flying out of RDU.  I should have taken some pics of the awesome glaciers I got to see while over Alaska. Oh well.   

A Brief Introduction...

I'm primarily starting this blog as a way to write about and document my upcoming trip to Thailand.  I thought I'd want to provide some longer narratives than what facebook is suited for.  I guess I also thought that people would want to read this crap, but most likely not.  Either way, it'll be good exercise for me as I don't write nearly enough (and it probably shows).  Depending on how it goes, I may keep this thing going afterward if I can find interesting things to write about. 

The name of this blog is stolen from the book by James Baldwin which I happened to be reading when I made the decision to leave my job with DOT after seven and a half years.  There were a couple parts of the book that resonated with me and helped to affirm my decision to leave my job, so I jacked the title.  Sorry James.

Anyway, I leave in a week (May 15th), and won't be there for too long, a little under two weeks.  Much of my time there will be spent training Muay Thai at 6 different gyms in and around Bangkok.  The rest of the time I'll be doing touristy stuff, shopping, and going to the major Muay Thai stadiums to watch fights.  The goal is to post daily updates here while I'm in Thailand, but that may be a little ambitious.  I might post again before I leave, otherwise it'll probably be when I'm bored during my 29 hours of flights getting to Bangkok.  I've never flown more than 6 hours, so feel free to pass along any advice if you've taken long flights. It certainly doesn't sound like much fun.