What we did: Muay Thai, dinner with Landon, Brian, and John, watched Muay Thai fights, went out for drinks
Budget: 1800B/$60; Spent: 2638B/$88
Today was our last day of Muay Thai. When we woke up this morning, we were pretty sad. Our time was coming to an end, and even Landon was not going to be there because he was going to the festival to watch Alan fight. It was a little depressing.
We had our usual breakfast at the corner restaurant, which is actually literally called "The Corner", if we haven't mentioned that before. Patty diverged from her usual order of eggs and got a sandwich and soup. I did not diverge.
We Facebooked Jon to cement our plans for the evening, and then got an email from Landon saying I would be sparring today. I wrote him back that I'd try to not get knocked out...
When we showed up at the gym, it turned out Landon hadn't gone to the festival. He said he hadn't been feeling good this morning so decided not to go. He had had food poisoning a couple days ago, so he probably still wasn't feeling great from that.
Although it was our last day, we still gave it our all. We did the usual shadow boxing in the mirror, and some of the trainers helped improve our techniques of various punches, kicks, knees, etc. I worked with Samart today because Perg, my usual trainer, was fighting tonight, so I assume he was resting. Samart was way easier on me today. Maybe he was just in a good mood. I was making some stupid mistakes with him, and he would keep correcting me, but with a smile. Overall, I was very pleased with my last training session. The amount of power in my punches and kicks has decreased drastically as the week has gone on, but at least I'm feeling more comfortable and relaxed while I do them. The trainers are always stressing that we need to be relaxed and not stiff. This was a bizarre concept for me coming into the training, since I have always assumed that muscles should be tense and ready to go while fighting.
I think this was the most exhausting workout in the ring for me yet. Whether I was tired from a long week of training or I could finally push myself harder because I knew what to do, I guess I'll never know. What I do know, though, is that it was a hell of a workout. Just before we would break for water for a minute, Samart would always make me do 10 kicks as fast and hard as I could. This is brutal, especially after already going at it for a couple minutes. I have so much respect for the physical shape fighters are in. It's a whole other level of fitness!
Meanwhile, Patty was working on the punching bag and then went into the ring and worked with Noi again. This time he was harder on her. She kept forgetting to block whenever she went in to knee him. But, finally she got it down. Her hip flexers were bothering her quite a bit so her form on the kicks suffered a bit. But she still managed to get some good patterns in. We both improved so much in just one week. It would have been neat to see us after another week.
Landon worked with us on the punching bag for a bit. He taught us how to punch the bag so that we wouldn't move it so much. This was a big help!
At the very end I sparred with Brian, Landon, and a German guy, whose name we can't remember. I began by sparring with Landon, who started off by saying "I won't hit you any harder than this" and proceeded to kick me in the thigh. I almost cried. No, really. I couldn't believe how much it hurt. I limped around on it for a bit, and I think Landon kind of felt bad, but I guess that's Muay Thai! I couldn't really do anything, and when I tried Landon basically just got me first. He didn't hit me again nearly as hard, but I felt like a punching bag. Next up was the German, who is much taller than me and just used his long reach to smack me around for a couple minutes, until Landon and him sparred and I started sparring with Brian. Although he's very athletic, he's an experienced rock climber, he's not a fighter, just like me. We jabbed at each other for a bit, until I faked a kick and punched him in the head. It was pretty funny to see him so surprised, but he got the last laugh. As we continued tentatively striking out at each other, I bent forward to dodge a punch as he brought up his knee and he caught me squarely in the nose. Thankfully, it remained attached to my face and we laughed about it. That pretty much ended our sparring session.
At the end of the session, we made plans to meet at our guesthouse at 7:30pm to go to dinner before the fights. A German guy, Felix, and one of our trainers, Perg, will be fighting tonight, each in different matches.
We got back to the guesthouse shocked that we just finished an entire week of Muay Thai training. We are pretty proud of ourselves for making it through, especially since we had gotten basically no intense physical activity since before we left in October. Although we are exhausted and our bodies are starting to stiffen up in places, we are in reasonably good condition, considering we just finished 7 sessions in 8 days! Even better, my feet weren't that sore today, so I was really happy about that.
We picked up our usual Gatorades and waters at the 7-eleven nearby our guesthouse.We also bought kebabs. I don't think we'll ever get sick of those. We sat for a bit and finally got up to get ready to go. We didn't leave ourselves enough time and really had to rush to get down to the lobby. Sadly, we were late. Brian, Jon, and Landon were waiting for us when we got down there. The five of us then walked to Ginny’s, the small Thai restaurant owned by one of Landon’s good friends.
While we were there, Landon told us a hilarious story about a domestic abuse incident that took place in his apartment building in Korea. Moral of the story: some Asian girls are nuts.
We learned quite a bit about our friends. Jon is a writer and literature buff. We asked him about what he's been writing about, but he only replied that "it sucks". Somehow I doubt that. We also learned a bit about both Landon and Jon's families. Sadly, it doesn't seem like Landon is very close with his family. His sister is getting married in the near future and he will go to the wedding, though he seemed more interested in seeing her fiance than her. Brian, it turns out, worked in Winnipeg over one summer. Seems like he mostly worked in a not-so-great part of the city and so had a pretty negative view of it.
We arrived at the fights around 9:30pm. We went to the back corner and watched from there. This is where the guys from the gym typically watch the fights from. We met up with Cristian (a French guy we have come to like) and all the other fighters and some of the trainers who didn’t go to the festival that weekend.
We mostly talked with Jon, though Patty did chat with Cristian for some of the night. Cristian opened up to her about his life and an accident he had had that made him end a successful boxing career. It was a pretty horrible story.
Perg, our trainer, fought first. We were excited to see our teacher in action. He was up against a fighter with quite a belly, but who was a little taller than him. At first the fight looked totally unevenly matched. Perg's opponent looked like he couldn't compete at all. This must have been part of his strategy because in the 2nd round he came out guns a blazing and lit up the ring. He ended up getting Perk with his elbow just above his eye brow. At first there was no blood, then Perk got hit there a 2nd time and the blood coming out was too heavy. The ref ended the match and Perg lost. He looked visibly disappointed and we could literally feel his pain just because of the look on his face. It was at least a little heartwarming to see his opponent bow down at Perg's feet out of respect after he won.
The German guy, Felix, stepped into the ring next. We learned he had only just come to Chiang Mai to fight once and had only actually trained at our gym twice. Apparently he has some experience fighting MMA, but doesn't seem he trains too much. He is however, a very brawny dude.
Felix seemed to hold his own the first round, then the 2nd round came and Felix seemed tired. He started making little mistakes, like letting his guard down, and eventually was knocked down with a flurry of elbows, and that was that.
It was a rough night for Chay Yai Gym, but we later learned Alan and Mike had both won their fights that night at the festival. So the night wasn't a complete disappointment.
We hung out waiting for Felix to get showered. He and his new fiancée wanted to go out to celebrate on their last night before heading back to Germany, so all of us were going to go out with him.
Brian told us Perg walked by him and apologized for his performance. We went up to Perg to thank him for everything and to tell him we enjoyed the fight. He apologized to both of us, too. He seems really hard on himself. Landon told us he fights just for the money now. He used to be the champion of northern Thailand at one point, but now he never trains much, but he seems to still expect results. I wish he had prepared more for the fight, at least so we didn't end up feeling so bad for him!
As we walked out, we saw Noi and his wife and invited them to come out with us. They said they would meet us there. We then told our guesthouse worker, Claire, to come with us, but she declined.
We went to Yellow Bar, which is where we had gone last weekend with Landon and Jon. Patty walked with Felix’s fiancée Annika, a sweet girl. She told Patty about how they got engaged and her experiences in India. Apparently her and her friend spent 3 months there.
Felix and Annika got sidetracked so we went on to Yellow without them, assuming they would find their way there. We walked in and it was packed with mostly tourists just as it was the last Saturday. We bought some drinks and sat around a table, chatting together. The seating areas are mostly outside, so it's kind of an interesting setup.
We all had a really great time there. We pretty much solidified our friendships with Landon, Jon, and Brian. I love those guys. They are each quite different. Brian is only 21 years old, Landon is 29, and Jon is about 35, I think. They are all hilarious in different ways.
Noi showed up with his wife, and it was great to see him for the last time. He actually seemed genuinely sad that Patty and I were leaving. Noi left a bit early and he gave us big hugs and told us to come back. He kept reminding Patty to keep her glove up. It was really cute.
When Yellow Bar closed, we went to Lucky bar with Landon, Jon, and Brian. The place was pretty dead but we made the best of it. Eventually Brian said he needed to go home to sleep so we found him a tuk-tuk and sent him on his way. Before he left he said he wanted to meet up for dinner tomorrow. It'll be nice to see him again.
Then it was just the four of us. We saw lots of "lady boys", probably the best ones we've seen yet. Some of them actually almost passed for women, except, as Landon pointed out, how they dressed was unlike any woman. It's something that probably takes some time to get used to.
We got talking about the existence of god by the end of the night. Jon and I discussed it with each other and Patty and Landon discussed it, separately, but somehow at the same time. Landon does not believe in god, but does believe in something like multiple universes and connections between people. He seems spiritual in some sense, I guess. He was very cautious about offending Patty, but she always finds it fun to have friendly debates/discussions as long as they stay respectful. It seemed like a good, honest conversation that brought us all closer, I think. We're really going to miss them.
Around 5am, we were ready to go to. We said "goodbye" to Jon and gave him big hugs. Landon pointed us in the direction of our guesthouse and told us he wouldn't say "bye" yet because we would get together tomorrow. We told him to keep his driving under 30km/hr and to get home safe and off we went to bed.
When we got back to our guesthouse there was a big fight taking place between the hotel owner and his girlfriend. They were yelling at the entrance. Claire explained what happened, and it seems that it had been a very interesting night at the guesthouse. I'm really glad we had missed it.
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