Thailand

Tuesday night's 8-person elimination format was a first for Bangla Stadium. Hyped as a marathon of muay thai, it started with the usual youth matches. Then they called 8 fighters to the ring and proceeded to hand out free t-shirts and cooling fans. Quite a treat for them I'm sure. Chok drew the 4th fight and won his first match by decision after 3 rounds. In his second match of the night, however, he lost to a much larger opponent from a rival gym. No judgements here, but the other fighter was clearly doing some steroids and should have been two weight classes above the 7 others in the pool. While Chok showed superior technique and speed, the weight advantage of his opponent proved too much. Still a great night, interrupted only briefly by a sloppy match between two overweight and ill-conditioned American and Australian visitors. I want my money back!

Post-fight festivities were spent in the rain in Patong, where there are bars within bars. Go figure. I have no appetite for that town, but it was Rachel's last night so a bunch of us tried to party it up. The highlights of the evening consisted of Boyan and Gareth beating the bartender at connect-four and some shameful dancing at FBI Thailand (Finest Bar In. . .). =P

Rain has been coming down in Phuket since the beginning of the week. Today it’s been non-stop, making it difficult to travel far by motorbike. It also make going to the beach kind of pointless. On the bright side, I’m living 40 ft from the gym and tonight we’re all going to Bangla Stadium in Phuket to watch one of our trainers fight. SuperChok (a.k.a. Lucky) will be fighting in an 8-person K-1 style elimination tournament in the 60kg class. Basically, this means the champion will have won 3 fights in a single night, giving an incentive to end each bout as quickly as possible. Regardless of the outcome, I’ve arranged to do private training sessions with Chok all next week. This also assumes that my eyes are healthy enough for training. This past week, I’ve been missing training because of mild conjunctivitis. If all else fails, I’ll just do it blind without my contacts. That should be interesting . . .

A host of other injuries have also halted training for a number of guests at the camp. At least 3 other guys have similar eye infections as myself. Rachel's ankle is jacked up from kicking improperly (she'll be touring through SE Asia while until it heals). A Swedish guy just punctured the sole of his foot from a sharp rock that speared through his flip flop yesterday. He can barely walk now. And I just saw Martin, who I've learned has been MIA for 5 days because of a rib injury. The sad part is when you get hurt from something completely unrelated to training.

The first week at Rawai Muay Thai has been fantastic. The day after I arrived, I visited Bangla stadium in Patong with Wat. Three guys from our gym (two foreigners and one trainer) competed and won their matches.

We’ve had pretty nice weather most of the week with only a few showers in the last few days. I’ve met a ton of great people from Dubai, UK, Canada, Sweden, and Singapore to name a few countries. Some of the guys showed me how to get to Nai Harn Beach, which is about 10 minutes away from camp by motorbike. You can rent a lounge chair and umbrella for 100 baht. Not many tourists and one of the cleanest from what I’ve been told.

And as expected, I’ve gotten pretty banged up. Mostly huge blisters on my feet from training on concrete and carpet (no nice mats like in the US). And of course the shin conditioning - bruises on top of bruises sprinkled with a few mosquito bites to make them itch. I’ll spare all of you the photos. I’m basically trying to work through the bruises while taping up my feet until they heal. Going to Bangkok this weekend to run some errands and hang out with my cousin. The break should give me some time rest – probably get a couple massages in as well.

Morning: 7am Golf Lesson with Jorgen at Palm Hills, followed by buffet breakfast.
Afternoon: Lunch at Hua Hin Market Village, then digested at the Holiday Inn (former Regent Hotel) with a beachside massage
Evening: Dinner at MK Restaurant with Thomas, our unofficial tour guide.
Yum. . . HOT POT!

Holiday Inn, Cha-am

Monday was the start of the resort and spa motherload. We moved from the site of Michelle's beach wedding, the Sofitel Central, to the Anantara which is more of a traditional Thai style resort. As a graduation present, Mary Anne treated myself and Mom to an afternoon massage at Asara. Thailand is the mecca for spas and massage, and Asara is a high end resort that just opened for operation two months ago. Since it was still at the pre-opening stage, the grounds were nearly empty apart from staff. One of the most amazing spas I've been to. We actually spent the entire afternoon there - touring the pool villas, hanging out at the spa, and eating some pretty good thai food just before the monsoon downpour slammed into us.

Tuesday, we met up with Thomas, Eddie, and Mag (all friends through my cousin Dennis) around midday at the construction site for Eddie and Mag's new resort in Cha-am. By coincidence, Mary Anne had interned for the architecture firm for the hotel back in the summer of 2005. It's difficult to describe the construction site. Everything was enormous in scale, from the monumental entrance to the Yao Ming sized doors everywhere. Each suite has something like 11 ft ceilings. Crazy! The pool villas were also amazing, constructed right up to the beach. I can't wait to see the finished product, which will be under hotel management by the Indonesian boutique hotelier Alila later this year.

For lunch, we ate at the Veranda, a beach resort in Cha-am with a modern touch. Great Thai food again. Then had a quick tour of the Sheraton (something like 2.1 billion Baht construction) and the Boathouse condos which are still under construction. Ended the afternoon with a golf lesson with Mary Anne at Palm Hills Golf Club. Pretty good time actually, despite the intermitent afternoon downpours which seemed to have returned since this past Thai holiday weekend.

Anantara, Hua Hin

Asara, Hua Hin

Construction Site, Cha-am