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Published: March 23rd 2008
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Round one winner
This fight wasn't so interesting but nonetheless he won. So Thai Boxing is pretty cool. We had front row seats. Why? Because that’s where they want foreigners. It keeps them out of the way of the Thais that are busy betting and they get more money out of us. Welcome to Thailand. There is a two tier pricing system in Thailand and you can’t really do much about it.
We saw six or seven matches and two of them were really good. No KO’s though. The ritual dances the fighters do before each match are very interesting. Each guy has his own deal and it’s kind of a combination of a dance/intimidation thing and prayer. Cool stuff. I don’t think our pics show the actual size of the arena but it’s really not too big. It probably holds around 1000 or so. The thing I liked was gong to the bathroom. You go back one way to the ladies and gents and then your’re in a big room…the locker room/training room. All the fighters are right there getting taped up and massaged. It’s kind of funny. You’ll see a pic of a guy who won his title fight. It wasn’t the main event but it was one of the
Action shot 1
This was the championship fight good fights.
While we were there we heard our first rain in Thailand. Did I mention that the stadium (it may be stretching it to call it that) had a tin roof and it was basically open air. Yeah. It was hot and muggy. Then it rained really really hard. That’s it, I guess. I mean not forever…just with the Thai boxing. Oh yeah, after that, because Claire did not eat dinner, we walked to McDonald’s (sigh). Western prices (it’s hard to go completely Thai). And McDonald's is good at consistency...it all tasted the same as in the States...except the catsup is slightly sweeter. We're finding this with many things. Thais seem to like sweet...lots.
After that we caught a cab back to our hotel. Of course when we walked out of McDonald’s there was a cab driver right there that said he would take us to our hotel for 250 baht…here’s why he’s a dick. In Bangkok taxis should always run the meter. Second, it shouldn’t cost more than 100 baht to go across town even in pretty bad traffic. Third…I don’t know, I’m sure there’s another reason that he sucks. Anyway, just another example of people
Action shot 2
More of the championship fight... trying to take advantage of you in Thailand. You learn quick here to bargain and watch your shit.
We walked a bit, hailed a cab, and paid 85 baht for our ride to the hotel. That’s just under $3 for a solid twenty minute ride (if not more).
Our Last Day in Bangkok/On To Koh Samui
Our final day in Bangkok was pretty uneventful because I just wanted to pack up and relax. That’s basically what we did. Our flight didn’t leave until 4pm so we had plenty of time. Claire did finally convince me to walk to Kao San Road one more time and have a few beers before our taxi picked us up for the airport. I still thought that street is a piece of shit. Someone needs to start selling soap instead of horrible techno cd’s. We did enjoy our beers though.
After that we hopped in our hotel’s taxi type thing…little did we know that we were in for a racecar (spell that word backwards) type trip. Our driver was this little old Thai guy that worked at the hotel as a bellman. He drove well on the surface streets…then he hit
Champ!
Proud moment. the freeway…he drove really fast. I’m still not good at converting km/hr but I figure he was doing between 90 and 100 mph the whole way. It was great. I loved it. Claire did not. We did wear seatbelts. We were quite early for our flight. I gave him a nice tip.
Speaking of tipping, you really don’t have to tip in Thailand (although they appreciate if you do sometimes). If you’re in a metered cab (in some region the cabs are not metered; you negotiate price before you go) you just round up to the nearest 5-10 baht and in many restaurants it's appropriate to leave nothing. It really helps when you’re on a budget (which we definitely are).
So we checked in and found out (wasn’t really a surprise) that our luggage was way too heavy (it was a domestic flight after all). We had to pay over $50 extra (25% of our ticket price). That sucked. Our flight was ok. About 50 minutes. It was really cramped and everybody on the plane was white except the staff. Koh Samui is one serious tourist destination.
We get to the island, get our luggage, secure a
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And here come the kicks... cab, and arrive at our new home for about thirty days, The Chaweng Nio Resort. First thing that struck us about this island was the driving. There are motorbikes everywhere, there’s hardly any shoulder for the roads, no lane markings, and there aren’t many rules. Pass whenever and wherever you’d like (even on uphills where you have no visual of what’s ahead), drive as fast as you want, and flash your lights if you want to tell someone that you’re not going to get out of the way/slow down even if it means being in a head on collision. Welcome to Koh Samui, Thailand.
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