Two down, one to go

Posted by landoman - 02/03/09 at 08:03:22 pm

I’m at the two month point in Thailand.  Two months…holy crap.  It feels like I’ve been here a year.  When you’re in a place like this time loses all substance.  Time of day has little meaning and days of the week have even less.  I just hope this last month doesn’t fly by…

This was another slow week.  Eating, training, and sleeping for the most part.  On Thursday me, Jazz, Inge, and Nadine went out to The Green Man for quiz night.  Nearly the whole pub was in on it.  But unfortunately most of the questions were related to British pop culture.  Regardless it was good fun.  We’ll probably be making it a weekly trend.

Later in the weekend I went over to Naiharn to see Marisa and Alex.  We went to Central and had sushi at a restaurant called Fuji.  Everyone had been telling me that this was an amazing place but I found out first hand that they were all right.  Without a doubt it was the best sushi I had ever had.  Afterwards we went down to the cinema and saw Valkyrie.  I had been expecting a mundane movie but it turned out to be surprisingly good.  A good evening all in all.

Slow

Posted by landoman - 25/02/09 at 05:02:50 pm

Not much has happened in the past week.  I’ve just been training like normal and taking it easy in the downtime.  But this weekend I went to a couple pretty nice restaurants.

The first was an English pub called The Green Man.  It’s just a short way past Chalong Circle and offers some of the best traditional English food on the island.  The menu is huge and below each item is a huge description of what the food is and why it’s on the menu.  I had my first proper steak of the trip — and man was it well-needed.

The second place I went to was a little Italian restaurant in Naiharn called La Italiano (go figure).  The owners walk around talking to people from time to time and provide a comfortable atmosphere.  And they have a stone oven.  So, naturally, I had one of the best pizzas I’ve ever eaten.  A giant pizza, at that.  Both places I ate this weekend offered huge portions — also well needed.

Long Weekend

Posted by landoman - 18/02/09 at 07:02:57 pm

Friday night I went to a movie here.  Me and Alex saw Underworld.  The theaters here are pretty awesome.  You can get either a regular seat, a sofa, or some theaters have “VIP” lounge chair type seats where you can basically lay down and stretch out; those have complimentary food/snacks.  But one ticket for the sofa was about $6, and then a giant drink, giant popcorn, and M&Ms were $3.  <$10 for everything — about 1/3 of what it would’ve been back home.

On Saturday night there were some exhibition fights at camp.  A few muay thai and a few mma fights.  We hung out there for a few hours and then about 30 people from camp all went out to Patong and hit the bars/clubs for a while.  There were so many of us from camp that we could’ve taken over entire buildings if we had wanted to.  I met a cute Aussie girl that was here for the week.  Good times.

The next day Alex and Marisa moved to a new resort at Naiharn Beach so I went over there and hung out all day.  Had dinner and lounged around for a bit and then the three of us went out to Patong again.  I managed to stumble into the same Aussie girl I had hung out with the previous night so we did more hanging.

I stayed over at Naiharn that night and then woke up yesterday, came back to camp, and trained.  Got back and then washed some clothes, cleaned up my room, and went to bed.

Four days of non-stop activity.  It’s fun every now and then but it gets tiring after so many sleepless nights.

Ah Crap

Posted by landoman - 13/02/09 at 06:02:30 pm

Yesterday Alex, Marisa and I all went horseback riding down through Rawai Beach.  For all intents and purposes everything started off quite nicely.  And by that I mean nobody got injured within the first hour.  But then I had to go and ruin everything.

So there we were letting the horses graze when one of the handlers asked anyone if they wanted to ride full gallop.  Of course, this wasn’t something I could resist so I happily volunteered.  I set off down the beach and the horse quickly burst into a gallop; but unfortunately my feet were too small for the stirrups so within the first few seconds I was left holding on for my life.  A few hundred meters down the beach I managed to get the horse slowed and turned around but as soon as I did that he took off back the way we came.

By this point I was literally hanging on by a thread and realized there was no way I would be able to hold on much longer.  We were on the beach so I wasn’t worried too much about leaping off.  As I finally started sliding off I looked down towards where I would be falling and saw a concrete pillar sticking out of the sand.  My last memory before I hit the ground was looking down and thinking “I’m dead.”

The impact knocked me out for just a second but when I came to I could taste blood in my mouth and could feel pain shooting through my arm and leg.  To my relief I realized that my face was in one piece, my teeth were all still intact, and nothing was broke.  Except my nose.  Faceplanting into wet sand has a few downsides.  So a broken nose, a few cuts in my mouth, and scrapes on my chin, arm, and leg were all the injuries I incurred.  I’ll live to ride again one day (but not for a really long time I don’t think).

Interesting Week

Posted by landoman - 10/02/09 at 04:02:24 pm

Last week, two interesting new people showed up at Coco.  A half-brother and sister, Alex was born in Belgium and his sister Marisa was born here in Bangkok.  They met for the first time a little over two weeks ago when they first found out they were related.  So Alex is here training at TMT and having a little miniature family reunion.  Like I said: interesting!

But I’ve been hanging out with them for the past few days.  We went out to eat one night last week and I found out that Marisa is a model and actress in Bangkok.  She’s been in Thai soap operas and other t.v. shows/commercials since she was a teenager.  I thought she was just pulling my leg at first but then I started looking around and noticed every Thai in the restaurant hiding behind things, slack-jawed and staring at us.  It was hilarious and totally awesome.  We went out to Patong a couple times this weekend and it was the same scenario everywhere we went.  People stopping, doing double-takes, and giggling in delight when they realize who they’re looking at.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  It’s amazing!

Speaking of Patong, I’m starting to dislike that place now.  Friday night we went out for a bit and Alex got sick.  Saturday we went out again to make up for the previous night and I got sick.  Also on Friday, Ryan was visiting his parents at Kata Beach and he, too, got sick; blaming Patong for that one anyways.

First Month

Posted by landoman - 05/02/09 at 10:02:18 am

I’ve officially survived my first month here.  Thailand has been fantastic thus far and the next two months are eagerly anticipated.  I’m getting fairly well-adjusted to intermediate muay thai now but I still get wrecked sometimes.  And I’m settled into my villa with my own food so I don’t have to waste money eating out anymore.

But in my time here, do I miss home in the States?  Yes and [mostly] no.
Yes because I miss the convenience of Sam’s Club — buying in bulk is something I took for granted.  Also I actually do like snow; I was hoping to get a bit of skiing in this season.
No because I’m in a tropical paradise with perfect weather every single day. I get to train muay thai all day, every day. And everything here is incredibly cheap. And there are beaches and pools everywhere.

What can I say? It’s a rough life here. I suppose I’ll manage to pull through this…

Nocturnality

Posted by landoman - 31/01/09 at 11:01:05 pm

Whyyyyy does 90% of the world operate so early in the morning?  At about 6:30 Jazz and I walked down to a little market a couple kilometers from Coco.  Before I left I was a bit hyper and way too full of energy.  But after that leisurely 5km stroll I was even more hyper than before.  It was about 8:00 at this point  (already dark) so did a quick 4km run to expel some of that pent-up energy.

It was fun and all, but I would love to be able to do all my training at night instead of so early in the morning.  I’ve always been more active at night…morning just plain suck.

Long Day…

Posted by landoman - 30/01/09 at 09:01:59 pm

Today was, uh, interesting.  It all started off fairly normally.  Get up, sit around and try to wake up, breakfast, and then weights.  Me and Jazz were gonna hit up BJJ but he decided to go and get sick; inconsiderate tosser!  Anyway, I rented a moped and hit Naiharn beach. Listening to music and fading in and out of consciousness as I basked under a pristine, cloudless sky with the sun directly overhead…

The fun began when I ventured into the ocean.  I floated around for a bit before I realized that I still had money in my pocket.  Arrrrgh!  Wet, sandy money.  I decided to hop out of the water and go grab some lunch.  It was during this process that I got tackled by a massive wave (massive in the sense that this one wave was merely twice the size of the usual tiny waves that were rolling in throughout the day).  But I gathered myself and grabbed lunch: a chicken sandwich!  I headed back towards the beach still clearing sand out of my pockets.  That’s when I realized the key to my moped was gone.

I immediately dropped my bag and rummaged through every pocket making sure I hadn’t stashed it like I had originally intended.  No dice.  So I backtracked, checking the area I had been lounging around earlier and as much of the water that I had been in earlier as I could.  No cigar.  Then I gave up and started trying to find someone that spoke enough English to help me find the phone number to Flora Villas (whom I rented the moped from).  People could talk to me at length about every single item they were selling but nobody understood that I needed a phone number.

Finally I found a hotel that staffed English-speaking employees.  Now here’s where the real fun began.  After a short bit we ended up finding Flora’s number and contacting the owner.  The guy that helped me at the All Seasons Hotel was exceptionally helpful, I might add.  One confusing phone call later they were looking for a spare key.  So I took a tuk-tuk back to Flora.  Upon arriving the owner started exciting yelling about having just sent someone to Naiharn to get me.  She called that person to have them come back and pick me up.  Ten minutes later I was on my way back to Naiharn.

Twenty minutes later…we arrive.  Only to realize we still had no key.  Apparently Flora had sent the spare key to Coco, the place I’m actually staying (it’s right beside Flora).  I’m not sure why they did this.  So we turn around and take another twenty-minute ride to Coco, then immediately take the same twenty-minute ride back to Naiharn.  All in all, I made the trip from Flora to Naiharn three times.  All because the original key was on a giant plastic keychain that made the entire key neutrally bouyant (that means it floated).

Long story short: a wizard did it.

Movin’ On Up!

Posted by landoman - 29/01/09 at 02:01:02 pm

After roughly two weeks of training at TMT I moved up to the Muay Thai intermediate class yesterday. And man, I was not prepared. Intermediate amps up the intensity on pretty much everything we do. Harder/more bag rounds, harder sparring, more conditioning. It’s great! But I wish somebody had told me I would be sparring with a trainer minutes after arriving. I managed to stay on my feet the whole time…but that’s about all I managed to do. He was half my size, twice as fast and twice as strong. A few of the guys that happened to notice the sparring mentioned that he was going harder than they had ever seen him go on people; testing the newbies, I guess. I at least got a glimpse of what a real thai boxer can do. Maybe at the end of these three months I’ll give it another go…

In the meantime I’ll let a Bacon Explosion soothe my injuries!

Oops

Posted by landoman - 27/01/09 at 11:01:56 am

I was planning a VISA run for early next week to extend the default 30-day VISA that foreigners get upon passing through customs. There are tons of different VISA runs you can go on so I was checking out all of the different options and checking out various flights/trips for the run. I couldn’t remember exactly which day I got here but Jazz recommended I simply open my passport and check the stamp. “Too easy” I said. But as it turns out I was given a 90-day VISA then I landed earlier this month. Boy was my face red!

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