It's not the Adam's Apple, it's how hard they Punch

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I met Paul and his friend Damian at a hotel in Chiang Mai, checked in, and headed out for a couple of long necks. In a dirty dive bar we watched a young punk rock band playing some Rage Against the Machine— reminded me of the show I never saw in high school with my buddy Parrish because the band broke up before the concert date. With my back to the bar as I watched the band, a large Thai guy stood right in front of me with his afro an inch from my face. I asked him to move; instead, he leaned in closer to me, holding his ear as if he couldn’t understand what I was saying, pushing his afro right in my face. He was an odd-looking Thai—as tall as me, fat, jean shorts well past his knees— looked more like a cholo (Mexican gangsta) than a Thai. Some yelling ensued in which he screamed, “You fuck with me, you fucking die!” Damian broke us up and with his back to afro-man informed me that the guy had a bit of reputation for being a gangster, that when they say they are going to kill you, they mean it, and that if I went outside to fight him, his buddies would appear from no where as if they were fire ants and I had just stepped on their dirt pile. Deciding I didn’t want to die on my first night in Thailand, I made peace, bought the guy a beer, and then we were BFF.

Chiang Mai is the second largest city in Thailand and the unofficial capitol of the north. The old city, where all the action takes place, is surrounded by a dirty moat and the remnants of a medieval brick wall built 700 years ago. The city is not visually pleasing— it’s the end of the dry season— the trees are leafless, the roads dusty and the perpetual burning of trash, rice fields, and dry forest creates an omnipresent grey haze in the air. But there’s something about this place that draws you in—the longer I stayed, the less I wanted to leave. There’s so much to do within the city and the surrounding mountains—Thai cooking classes, massages, yoga, mountain biking, rock climbing, Muay Thai (kickboxing)— and the food is incredible— I could stay for months just to try every dish on the menu at some of my favorite restaurants. My favorite place to eat in Chiang Mai was Jacky’s— we stumbled on her little kitchen one night while walking some back alleys near our guesthouse. Jacky is a vivacious thirty year old, passionate about two things- food and people. Our first night at Jacky’s and every time after that, as soon as the meal was served and we had a chance to swallow a couple of bites, she was out of the kitchen to sit down and talk about anything and everything. She made friends with everyone who entered her little restaurant, so we kept seeing the same people returning day after day. On our final night in Chiang Mai, Jacky planned a little party for her new and long-term regulars. She closed down the restaurant and made a table full of her signature dishes for all of us to feast on while we chatted and drank beer together. It was a great night and inspired a Jacky’s Fan Club on facebook.

My second night in Thailand was something I wish to have once a week with old friends— or new ones, for that matter. Just a simple evening with good people, good food, good wine and good conversation. We went to the home of a friend of Damian’s, Anne, an American woman from Baltimore who works for an NGO that helps older people in the countryside to save money for retirement. In the past, the elderly were cared for by their children in their final years of life; but the prevalence of methamphetamine addiction and AIDS has caused many deaths among the younger generation in northern and eastern Thailand, leaving many of the elderly with no one to take care of them. Anne and her boyfriend, Tomas, a Dutch guy who sings in a band with Damian that allegedly does really good covers of KOL, made a delicious lasagna and Paul whipped up some chili and ginger spiced pork lettuce cups. Seven of us sat around a big round table in the front yard; with a bonfire burning nearby, we filled our bellies and talked all night, fueled by copious bottles of red wine, warming our bellies and glazing our eyes.

Damian owns a mountain biking tour company called Crank Adventures. Damian, Paul, our guide- Mr. Wynn, Damian’s spirited golden retriever- Lucy, and I headed north, to the Chiang Dao mountains in the Toyota 4 wheel drive with our bikes loaded on the roof. An hour later it was time to ride. Damian followed in the truck as our one-man support team, giving us water and bananas after the grueling climbs up steep, rocky hills. Dame-O couldn’t ride along because just a week before he sliced off the top of his middle finger: When picking up the metal chair he was sitting in at his desk, moving himself and the chair over a few feet, he sat back down with his finger caught underneath the chair, in between the seat and the metal it rests on, and pop goes the top of his finger. After a long day of riding, we pulled into a hill tribe village on the river and took a much-needed, refreshing swim in the cool water. Damian and Mr. Wynn made us some delicious Panang Curry in a wok over a fire. There was no electricity and we slept on thin mattresses atop a wood-plank floor in a simple house on stilts. In the morning we rode on and stopped off at an elephant “sanctuary”. It was a pretty sad sight— 40 or so elephants chained by the leg to trees, used for riding tourists around on their backs.

When we returned to Chiang Mai, Paul rented a dirt bike to explore some surrounding areas for a few days and I signed up for Muay Thai training at Lanna Boxing Gym. The first day started at 6:30 in the morning with a 5k run, followed by skipping rope and shadow boxing in front of a big mirror to learn the technique. There wasn’t much of an order to the training— just kind of do what you want and the trainers come around and tell you how to correct the mistakes you’re making. Half of the people are hitting the bags or practicing technique in the mirror while the other half are in the ring working the pads with the trainers. Everyone is beating the hell out of the bags or the pads for 5 minutes at a time, with the final two minutes a wild frenzy of fast kicking and punching as the trainers scream to go faster- the adrenaline was really pumping being surrounded by so much energy. When the trainers relented, we hit the floor for ten push-ups and started again. Later it was my turn to get in the ring and work the pads with a humorous, mid-50’s looking trainer. He was laughing and making funny noises when I hit the combinations. Then he shocked the hell out of me when he punched me in the face— I thought I was just hitting the pads, but I guess I needed to learn to protect myself. Then he kicked my legs out from under me and sent me down to the mat hard. At the end of the session, I was surprised to see that three hours had passed by—time for some food and rest, then back to the gym at 4:30 for more. The next morning I was feeling the pain. I didn’t want to get out of bed, but forced myself to get up and rode my scooter to the gym. I went for a 10k run this time and at the end of it I knew my body couldn’t handle the training that day. So I came back the following day for a final training session. The combination of running, jumping rope, boxing, push-ups and pull-ups was the best work out I’d ever done. The next day, Damian dropped Paul and I at the bus station where we caught a ride north to Chiang Rai.

Chiang Rai is much less hectic than Chiang Mai— not nearly as many tuk-tuks, motorbikes and tourist shenanigans. It’s a more pleasant-looking city, with a central park and massive trees lining the streets. We went to a great night market and sampled some fried crickets and some small, white grubs— yummy. From Chiang Rai we planned to take a bus to the border of Laos and take a boat down the Mekong to the city of Luang Prabang. But our plans changed when we were informed that the river was being dredged in that area and no boats were able to make the passage. The only option was a torturous 12-hour bus ride thru winding mountain roads. So we bussed back to Chiang Mai and soon learned that a bag Paul lost while riding the dirt bike around a few days before had been found and turned in to the police in a town called Pai. We rented some scooters and took off on a three hour, 150-kilometer ride thru the mountains en route to the quaint, hippy mountain town, pronounced like “pie”. As we winded around hairpin switchbacks, moving higher into the mountains, the air became refreshingly cool with each climb. We stopped off for some lunch at a little coffee farm and café. Here, in the middle of nowhere, Thailand, we were served delicious lattes from an industrial espresso machine. The Communication Age is changing the world rapidly and making it a much smaller place. Even the hill tribe people with no electricity or running water have cell phones with solar chargers.

Pai was an interesting place— a little too perfectly hip— like a hippy Disneyland. The streets are really clean, the bars and restaurants all have short Indian style tables that you sit on the floor next to while resting on pillows, listening to funky music. We rode the scooters another 45 kilometers to a place called Lod Cave where we joined a couple of Aussie girls from Melbourne and were guided thru the expansive, dark caves by lantern light. Massive stalagmites hung from the bat infested cave ceiling. We trekked thru the cave, descending steep stairs down to an underground river where we boarded a long, thin bamboo raft and were pushed down the shallow waterway by the long stick of the raft captain. Hundreds of fish became visible at the surface of the dark water, thrashing about as we threw bread to feed them. We climbed more steep stairs into a cave that revealed long wooden coffins believed to be 2000 years old. After two nights in Pai, we made the long journey back to Chiang Mai on St. Patty’s Day.

At Damian Mulligan’s Crank Tavern, we retrieved our bags and had some whiskey in celebration of our shared Irish heritage before Paul and I hopped on an overnight sleeper train to Bangkok. On the train, we met the Melbourne girls we were at the caves with. We had two seats open next to us so they joined us with their Sam Song Thai whiskey. We brought the good stuff for the occasion: Jameson’s Irish Whiskey. When those two bottles were gone, we headed for the bar car and went through an unknown amount of Sam Song. The rest of the night is a bit of mystery—visions of salsa lessons from Jo, who is a dance instructor, ridiculous conversations about love and the meaning of life, curtains closing in a tiny train bed. The girls were sure quick to leave the train without saying goodbye in the morning and I had a massive hangover as I stepped into the steaming streets of Bangkok.

The Red Shirts were out in full force, protesting in Bangkok. Recordings of the much-revered king making screaming speeches blared through the streets all day and night. Locals kept telling us it wasn’t safe to be in the city, but despite hearing rumors of a grenade being thrown, the atmosphere didn’t seem violent. The Red Shirts are a large political group, mostly of people from rural areas, making their living as farmers. They are protesting against the current “silent dictatorship” and propose the creation of a “real democracy” in Thailand. Further, they are supporters of the former prime minister, Thaskin, who created many pro-poor policies, including Thailand’ first universal-healthcare program; but Thaskin was forced into exile after a military coup when it was discovered that his net assets increased five-fold to $2.2 billion during his time in office from 2001-2006— allegedly the result of tax evasion and the selling of national assets to international investors.

Bangkok is massive, disorienting, and incredibly humid and smoggy. We roamed the streets all day and grabbed a tuk tuk to Chinatown in the evening for some dinner and a look around. We had some really tasty roast duck with noodles at a street side food cart and headed home for an early night as we hadn’t slept much on the train. Paul flew to Laos the next day because is his 30-day visa was up. I stayed and met Cochise and his cousin, Cerel, at a cheap, quiet guesthouse.

I spent a couple more days roaming the city with my French pals. We went to the incredible weekend outdoor market. The shops were endless, selling anything you can imagine. There were at least 20 stores stuffed full of used shoes. Where they come from is a mystery to me. I left my New Balance shoes on the train— I’m sure they ended up somewhere in this market. Three times as many shops were selling rip off Levi’s and Nike’s. I found a shop selling second-hand, authentic NBA jerseys from the early to mid 90’s and authentic soccer jerseys. I picked up a Grant Hill Pistons jersey, a Jason Kidd Mavericks jersey and a Crespo Argentina national team jersey.

That night we made our way to Bangkok’s most notorious prostitution district, Nana Station. In a three-story complex of hooker bars, we walked past giant ladyboys as they grabbed my ass and tugged my arms to impede me from walking by. I don’t know why, but the ladyboys really liked me. Cochise thinks they could smell that I was fresh meat, unwise to the ways of the prostitution underworld. We went into a “real” girl bar, where young Thai girls danced on a stage wearing black lingerie and a number attached to one breast. If you wanted a girl, you just told the manager her number and she would come down to have drinks with you and make an “arrangement”. The sight of drooling, fat, old, pasty men hand-in-hand with young girls was rather disgusting. A Scottish guy, who I could barely understand, let alone my French buddies, told us that we absolutely had to check out the ladyboys at a bar a few doors down— that there were men inside who were more beautiful than any woman he’d ever seen. I’ve heard this crap before— and I don’t know whom the people who say it are trying to fool except themselves. They must just really want some hot, homosexual sex and think they can justify not being gay by saying the ladyboy was more beautiful than a woman— because they all look like dudes to me— they sound like dudes and they are damn strong like dudes when they grab me and put me in a choke hold (no, that didn’t really happen).

Some guy from Chicago swore to us that the world’s best burgers could be had right outside of the complex at a roadside food cart. I’m always tempted to order a burger when I’m in the mood for western food, and when I do, I’m disappointed every time. But this guy from Chicago must have had some tasty burgers in his time, so I had to try one. It was shit. I’m dreaming of In n’ Out, Hodads, Chili’s, homemade barbecue burgers on the fourth of July.

We all went our separate ways into the hooker-filled, dark streets. I was pursued by a ladyboy while I looked for a cab to go home and when I told “her” to fuck off, “he” punched me in the arm— it hurt. So let me tell you, you don’t have to look for the Adam’s Apple— you know by the strength with which they grab and punch. The following evening, my birthday, I took an overnight train to Vientiane, Laos and felt great relief to leave Bangkok behind. Don’t get me wrong— it’s a fun town— but a fun town you would find in Hell.

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