Thai Boxing, but no tigers

---

I had a lazy day yesterday. Patong beach, where I am is only a very small area. Basically, there's a road that runs alongside the beach for about three quarters of a mile and another road parallel to that and about four hundred yards away. My hotel's on that parallel road. There are a few interconnecting roads along the way - and that's about it. So not much room for the long walks I had sightseeing in Chiang Mai. I spent much of yesterday lazing by the pool atop my hotel, and occasionally swimming. Then I wandered down to the beach and lay down on a beach bed under an umbrella (100B) for a bit before venturing out into the water.

I haven't tried snorkelling here yet as I'm planning to move on to Phi Phi and it's supposed to be better there. The beach is lovely, though. The sand is very fine, light brown in colour with a curious irridescence so it looks like little silver stars are twinkling upwards. From the beach you can clearly see the wooded hills that gave the island its name. Apparently Phuket means "hilly" in Malay.

The beach recovers very quickly from the rain. When I went down this morning I expected mud after last night's downpour, but the sand was soft and dry. The only problem with the sand, perhaps because of its fineness, is that as you lie on your beach bed sand is occasionally blown into your eyes by the gently cooling breeze blowing in from the sea.

The waves, when you wade out into the water come in with tremdus force, almost knocking yu down. Maybe that's because the beach is in bay and the waves are concentrated. This whole area, of course, was badly affected by the tsunami abut four years ago but the only sign of it now is that vendors here seel tsunami souvenirs and dvds along with the normal elephnts and buddhas.

This is the Andaman Sea! I read about fishermen living here when I read the Arabian Nights! I can lie on a beach bed and look out to sea, seeing the hills on both sides of the bay as they descend to the sea and the distant horizon ahead in the direction of India.

Some of the only peoples in the world uncontacted by civiised man live in the Andaman Islands. It's not strictly true that there's been no contact. There has ben and we know where they are. But whenever anyone approaches them or leaves gifts they respond angrily, throwing spears and generally trying their best to kill the interlopers. So they've been left alone and no one knows the language they speak. And they live in that sea, right in front of me! I only found this out recently after reading the book "Six Suspects", written by Vikas Swarup who also wrote Q and A, the book on which Slumdog MIllionaire was based.

One thing that I find very puzzling is the way the roads work here. Both of the two parallel main roads are one way - one north to south and the other south to north - and that makes sense of course. But on other, interconnecting, roads cars drive on the right - whereas elsewhere, in Thailand as in England they drive on the left. Bangla Road is an instance of this. The only explanation I have guessed at is that it is somehow to do with escape routes from any new tsunami - Bangla Road is a designated tsunami escape route. But I'm not sure why this should make a difference.

There would be no point in asking the people at my hotel. My impression, which may be quite wrong and is certainly unfair, is that the Thai people here don't understand Englsh so well as those from the north. Everything takes long, complicated explanations.

In fact, they don't even seem to understand their own language! Yesterday I wished the receptionist a polite "Arun sawat" which means good morning - and she asked me if I wanted room service!

It definitely is Thai for good morning - one of the wats in Bangkok was Wat Arun which means Temple of the Dawn and "sawat" is part of the normal greeting "sawat dee krap / ka"

So either they don't understand their own language - or else you'd have to say that I wan't pronouncing it right. You pays your money and you takes your choice. But they definitely don't know what "tuk tuk" means. Everywhere else it's a three wheeled vehicle powered by a motorcycle engine. Here, it's a four wheel truck.

After having dinner, I wandered down Bangla Road once it was dark. Bangla is one of the interconnecting roads, quite near my hotel, and is famed as the centre of Patong beach night life. But at about half past eight it still seemed to be too early for anything much to be happening.

Then I was approached by a tout advertising a Thai boxing match who sold me a VIP ticket for 2,000B. This included a free Thai Boxing T shirt! I would be able to say that I'd been there, done it, and got the T shirt!

The stadium was at the other end of Bangla Road, past my hotel, and I joined the queue to get in. The VIP area where I was seated, clutching my free T shirt, was at ringside and I was three rows back, near the red corner. Nearly everyone in the VIP area and the downstairs seating area was western in appearance. On the other hand nearly all of those sitting in the upstairs seats, with their views unobstructed by the ring furniture, ropes and referee, were Thai. I thought there were maybe about five or six hundred people in the audience.

I arrived as the second bout was in progress and watched as the red corner fighter elbowed his opponent and gained a knock out.

In Thai boxing you can use fists, elbows, knees and feet to hit your opponent. The fighters all wore boxing gloves and some wore a sort of sock that left the toes and heel of the feet exposed. Some wore this on one foot, some on both and some wore no sock at all.

As with most things Thai, it was all well organised. The boxers from the blue corner wore blue boxing gloves and normally bluish trunks and those from the red corner wore red gloves and red or pink trunks. Some of the trunks were very highly decorated.

Waiters and waitresses wandered around taking orders for beer and popcorn etc and collecting empty bottles between rounds. Smoking was allowed or, at all events, many of the audience were smoking.

When new fighters came into the ring they would prance about for a bit, showing off their muscles and physique and then one of them would fall to the canvas and kneel and prostrate himself, presumably praying for victory or a good fight. Then the other boxer would likewise kneel and pray. This happened in every fight, even those involving farang fighters.

Some of the more religious or superstitious fighters would also kneel and pray between rounds.

As the boxing started, so did loud oriental music that added to the excitement. Normally, I didn't hear the bell at the end of rounds, but just became aware that the music had stopped. For most of the time between rounds western music with a strong regular beat was played.

The first few bouts I watched all followed the same pattern. In rounds one and two the boxers assessed each other at long distance, exchanging kicks and punches but rarely getting close enough to land an elbow or knee. Then in rounds three and four the action picked up, sometimes resulting from a knockout. Round five, if the fight hadn't ended by then was all out and at the end of that round the judges' scores were collected in.

Most of the time I agreed with the judges' verdicts and none seemed obviously unfair. But I wasn't really sure what they were judging on - aggression, numbers of contacts, relative strength at the end or something else.

A loudspeaker system gave the number of each round (though this was also displayed in lights high up on the arena's wall) and made other announcements. I thought the announcements were in Thai, but I'm now inclined to think it was just a poor sound system and the chap was speaking English after all. Half of the announcements on London's underground might as well be in Thai.

The sixth bout starred an Aussie boxer, fighting a native Thai. This time the real fighting started straight away. Less than a minute into the first round the Aussie's head was badly cut but he kept fighting and, in a move I hadn't seen before, turned his back on the Thai and brought his elbow down sharply onto his head. Now both boxers were bleeding from the head.

The Aussie was able to use his size and weight to dominate the match from then on and won on a knockout, elbowing the Thai in the kidneys. He was fighting out of the red corner and there was much excitement as he came out near my seat.

Some of the winning Thai boxers were given money immedately after the fight - whether as prize money or gambling proceeds - and came out clutching the money in their teeth as boxing gloves did not have much grip.

I saw twelve fights in all Towards the end I could feel a spray of water. It was raining hard outside and some was getting in.

The last fight ended at five to midnight and I wandered back down Bangla Road trying to avoid the deeper puddles of water. I had to walk through some but it didn't matter as I was wearing sandals. It was pleasant to be able to walk wearing T shirt (a regular one, not the Thai boxing one) and shorts through the streets in a shower in the middle of the night and still feel comfortably warm.

Soon I was back in the brightly lit end of Bangla Road and I turned into the Tiger complex of bars which had been recommended by my book. The book said that the waitresses would be dressed as tigers and I was disapointed to find this was not the case.

But there were girls wearing short hotpants gyrating about poles set into the bar tables, so I watched for a bit. Soon I was invited to sit down at one of the bars by a pretty Thai girl wearing a revealing top and tight jeans. She asked my name and told me hers but I'm afraid I have forgotten it. I do remember the name of the bar - Wet Dreams Bar.

She suggested that we played a game. I wasn't sure what to make of this and suspected that gambling or some scam might be involved but it all seemed perfectly innocent. There were two dice, to be thrown into a box. The lid of the box consited of nine tabs numbered one to nine. When you threw the dice you could close one tab - that coinciding to the number on either of the dice or to the sum of the numbers on both dice. If you closed a tab, your turn continued. If you closed all tabs you had won. If you could not close a tab, the dice passed to your opponent. It's obvious that there must be a strategy to increase your chances in such a game, but it's hard to think about it in a noisy bar with beatiful women pawing at you and after a few drinks. So I generally lost. I did win one game by a sheer fluke.

Anyway, my lovely opponent was concerned to increase her luck so before throwing the dice she would rub them on my breast and in my groin area for luck. I obviously wanted to be seen as polite, so when it was my turn I fondled her breasts with the dice too and rubbed them on the legs of her jeans. It didn't make me any luckier, but it did increase my spirits.

I was buying beer after beer for myself and also drinks for her by now and we were getting quite friendly and ecncouraging each other in our dicing efforts by cuddling one another and the occasional peck on cheeks or lips. She was drinking Coke rather than alcohol but occasionally the bartender would hand out a round of small blue drinks which were very nice and she drank these with me. Some other girls came round and kibitzed at our gane and suggested which tab I should close as they gently stroked their hands along my legs and arms.

I was paying for the drinks as I went along but about half past one was asked to pay another 160B and I had no idea what it was for - maybe the little blue drinks. Anyway, shortly after that I said bye to the girls and left, walking back through a now clear night to my hotel.

I checked my money when I got back and I seemed to have spent about 1,000B at the bar, say GBP20. Considering I'd had four bottles of Singha Beer (and some blue drinks as well) and bought at least six drinks for the girls, that didn't seem too bad.

And so to bed . .

---