And so it begins...

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As soon as I got off the plane in Bangkok I lost my body weight in sweat. Thought to myself I shouldn’t be wearing a jumper! Haha. Anyway spent 4 hours at the airport mostly talking to my wonderful girlfriend Abby, who is great at helping me not panic! I also enjoyed one last McDonalds before my fitness freak-out! As I was on my flight heading to Phuket I opened a letter from my girlfriend which was so sweet and filled my heart with joy, easing my nerves about what’s to come but also making me miss her even more. It was a short flight from Bangkok and I touched down in Phuket after an hour in the sky. As soon as I collected my bag and walked outside a zillion people ran towards me yelling “TAXI FOR YOU SIR?” I said no many times and then a man with the crest of the gym walked up to me and said “boxing?” I responded with a “Yes Sir” and we drove 30 minutes to the gym.

The gym is just a warehouse with no walls apart from one side where there are shared rooms and the gym shop. It’s so beautiful here but so unbelievably hot! After I was shown to my room my dad called and asked if everything is ok and everything was apart from the tiredness so it was a short conversation. Never really heard my dad concerned like this before and never really thought that he missed me that much but he does which is nice to know! If it wasn’t for dad I would not be here and I would not have gone to Africa which means I would not have met the Love of my life (Abby). I am so grateful for the opportunities that he has given me and will make the most of them all the time!! After I chatted with dad Abby called and I spoke to her for a few hours, I’ve never felt so happy speaking to someone before in my life. I went to bed about 23:30 I think and had a crap nap. I left the fan off so I could get used to the humidity but ugh it was horrible. Got out of bed at 7am and went to buy all my equipment from the gym shop! There they asked me what I needed, how long I was staying and when do I want to start! They seemed surprised that I wanted to start straight away! I was not, I am here for one reason only and that is to get fit! Of course learn all there is about the culture and go wash some elephants but for the start I need to knuckle down and get fit! As soon as I had my equipment I was changed and ready to go learn Muay Thai! I headed over to an Instructor and he showed me how to put on my hand wraps which was sooooo cool! I looked the bee’s knees! Tell you what though after half an hour I didn’t feel like it!! Firstly you do a little warm up by yourself so that includes skipping a little jog. You then head over to the big mat and you do stretches with everyone there which takes 10 minutes and then you head over to your trainer. My trainer is called Lee, quite easy to remember. He is a good teacher, understanding and helpful. I was by myself for the first 15 minutes learning how to correctly throw punches, kicks, elbows and knees. In between each section of training you have to do 10 push ups and 10 sit ups. After I learned those I joined the group and we all worked together learning. After practising punches and kicks we put our gloves on and hit the punch bags. Unfortunately for me I kicked the bag in the wrong place with the wrong part of my foot and caused myself some grief but could put it off for the remainder of the session. We finished with our trainer by doing some shadow boxing which is just practising everything you’ve learnt hitting the air. After our session with our trainer we move over to the mat again to warm down. The whole morning session takes 2 and half hours. I’ve never felt so good even though it’s unbearably hot and you’re constantly sweating. All it does is remind you to drink plenty of water! After my ankle decided to hate me I was told to take the afternoon off and just relax it. The reasons why my ankle was beat was just because it had never really had a good stretch and never really kicked anything, so plenty of wiggling and muscle rub will do the trick! I spent the afternoon in my room drinking a hell of a lot of water and speaking to Abby on Skype which I am so grateful for right now! Think I’d die if I couldn’t see her for 3 months! Everything about her pushes me forward to make me a better man! I realised by the time it was 19:00 I hadn’t eaten in 24 hours and the humidity took my hunger away from me! What’s that I hear?? Ben? Not hungry? Haha yes it was only until I found a restaurant I was truly happy again. The feeling of this whole thing was overwhelming and a few times thought I can’t do this. Then my Abby picks me back up and sends me to go get some food! Legend. So I ate a big steak and everything was great again! As I returned from the restaurant literally 500 yards from the gym it began to rain...I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy haha. Nice cool rain. My foot was feeling much better and I felt I should be ok to do tomorrow’s session. When I got back I spoke to my mother about what was happening and she was happy that I was ok and also happy because her money for her back pain has come through which means she can finally go have some time for herself and take it easy so I am so happy about that! I spoke to Abby for a while and we talked about many things, she wanted to know everything about my day and I wanted to know everything about hers, got to say hello to her family which I will be meeting soon so I’m soooo excited about that!!!! After we said our goodnights I put my head down to sleep so I would be able to hammer it the next day. Little did I know it would be another restless night.

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