Feb 2007

This entry has taken weeks to finish again, sorry!

As far as school goes, February was filled with reviewing with the kids, writing, grading and supervising exams and writing reports.. In 2 weeks school finishes!

I'm done with work and Matt has only got a week left today. Then we'll be travelling for a couple of weeks before heading back to Europe (via Sri Lanka for one night) at the very end of the month! We'll be back ifor the whole of April and we'll try to see as many of you as we can! Then it seems we're off to continue our TEFL adventure in Japan for 3 months

Anyway, this entry is meant to be about Muay Thai (Thai boxing) so I'd better get to the point! On the 13th of February Matt and I headed off to Lumpini stadium for some Muay Thai action. Watching, not doing. And stadium is perhaps a bit of a generous name as it's not that big and a wee bit dingy. But that just adds to the atmosphere: along with the Thais betting left right and centre!

I'll hand over to Matt for more details as I've been doing a lot of the writing!

So, our taxi finally makes it to the stadium, which I hardly noticed from the street. As soon as we got out of the taxi touts try to sell us cheap tickets for good seats, and are showing us various pictures. Taking advice from our Lonely Planet we ignored them and went straight to the ticket booth for Farang (white foreigners). It was way more expensive than the LP said but our romantic pre-valentine's day outing was not going to be spoilt! So, our tickets in hand we are ushered to our seats (next to the other farang), while walking past a number of policemen, and our luxurious wooden benches hovering over a bottomless pit of rubbish (definitely) and rats (probably). The second fight of seven was already under way.

Our first impression was that the two competitors looked about 13. They weighed about 100 pounds I believe (which is near 50 kg) according to the program, which almost confirmed our thoughts. They were having great fun though, wacking away at each other. As the bouts continued the weight generally increased, and up to the main event, so did the skill. They still looked like teenagers though. The second thing that was imprinted upon us, was the crazy betting going on in the 3rd class standing seats. It was packed with thais all waving their hands. Melissa in her wisdom told me that the ones at the front were taking bets, with their hand and arm movements signifying odds and such. I had heard before about the amazing ability of those taking bets to remember what odds they gave and how much was bet. It is slightly strange though, I thought gambling was illegal in Thailand? In my school, even playing cards are banned! The large police presence at the entrance might suggest some official interest, but I wouldn't want to anymore than that.

Anyway, before the main event, we got a little information on muay thai and the stadium. The minimum requirements for contestants to our surprise was a minimum age of 16 and completion of junior high. We were also assured they were all physically checked out before the fights. After that we got a demonstration of old or traditional muay thai. If you've seen Kickboxer (with Van Damme), you would have recognised the hand raps Anyway, we got a demonstration of a number of techniques in a mock-fight. It was pretty good, they weren't pulling the hits very much and it flowed nicely. A lot of it reminded me of stuff you see in Ongbak (a Thai film about a young man sent to Bangkok to reclaim their stolen sacred buddha, who happens to be a muay thai expert (old style)), with spinning elbows, jumping knees and one or two nice throws.

The main event was obviously a bit more professional with more hits, and visible red marks, but the fights were clean and the referees took care of the fighters and the contestants seemed to enjoy themselves too. As did the croud and so did we!

Check out the photos (they are only thumbnails so you'll have to click on them to get a good view - they aren't photoshopped yet so are pretty dark!) The first one is of the ceremony they do before the fight...

... or better still check out the video!

More soon..

Well, you’ve heard all about New Year’s eve and our adventures on our days off for that… After that it was back to school as usual until mid January when the thankless task of teaching is honoured in Thailand by giving us a day off (teacher’s day). So yet again we packed our hats and sun cream and set our sights a little further a field this time: the ancient city of Ayutthaya. Ayutthaya, which is built on an island on a river, was pretty much the capital of Thailand (or most of the territory that is now Thai). It flourished for some 400 years but was ransacked by the Burmese in 1767 (cue pantomime prop-man holding up a sign that reads: boooo!). Most of the art, palaces, temples and Buddha statues were destroyed. Still, we decided to go have a wander around what’s left…

Ayyuthaya is about 90km north of Bangkok and we decided to go by train (we being Matt, myself and a friend from work, Kirsten). This may not have been a great decision as we were treated to a charming display of Thais’ lack of punctuality: the train was over an hour late! But once we were off and out of Bangkok we travelled past rice-paddies, herons, water buffalo and fields. Very picturesque indeed, although I managed to miss all the buffalo as I was too engrossed in my newspaper!

Ayyuthaya proved to be a lovely break from bustling Bangkok. It is quiet, beautiful and very relaxing. We rented bikes and cycled amongst all the ruins and statues. We were a little creeped out by all the beheaded Buddha statues but apparently the Burmese cut their heads off to check they weren’t made of gold and just covered in plaster (a common dissimulation technique), or so said the French tour guide I was eavesdropping on!

All in all it was a lovely day, marred only by a disgusting lunch (Thais make some of the best food in the world, but as we unfortunately discovered they also make the worst!).

School resumed the next day and the next few weeks held all sorts of fun such as a 3 day scout camp for Melissa (not much scouting but lots of fun activities) and being the judge of a speech competition for Matthew. Until you've taught at a school you have no idea how demanding it can be!!!

Hope you are well, take care!
xxx