random pics

heavy bags, john with his trainer, dinner in wangs parents yard, wang eating(a true rarity. i've never seen him ingest anything but cigarette smoke and chang beer), <3 wang pole dancing<3 respectively

<3 our neighborhood <3

Bruises

At the lake the other day, my regular trainer Wang (hes the dude in my pictures that never wears a shirt) explained why he always kicks me in the same thigh when kick pads. After about the fifth time(my left thigh hurts before we even start from the day before) i start to drop my guard out of pain. Thats when an opponent kicks you in the neck he says and shows me by applying pressure to the vein behind my jaw line. instant knockout. Two days ago Den (manager/trainer/ ex 16 year old dual champion) kicked the crap out of me while we were doing pads. He's known as the hardest trainer but he went a lot harder on me than i see him going on the other beginners. The trainers here test you. If you don't seem up for the pain they take it easier on you. If you eat it and don't complain they take you a little more seriously. When Den was kicking my ribs he held back a lot but made sure to slap with his foot pretty hard (I didn't think something like stinging pain could give me pause as this did). He also punched and kicked me in the stomach till i thought i was gonna throw up. It may sound stupid to some people to say that this was great. The trainers here are all fighters/former fighters. They're polite to everyone but, I feel like they only really show you respect by how hard they lay into you(no homo). In the middle of kicking me Den asked how long i was staying. When i said another 3 weeks he said I need another 2 months. I really wish i could. Maybe I show some potential at this shit. I wish i was training now instead of stuck at home with a stomach flu, writing this stupid blog(poorly). Anyway heres a shitty picture of one of my matching footprint-shaped rib bruises. more pics of my brand new hot pink muay thai shorts with the gyms name on it later.

At the lake with Wang(trainer/boyfriend), baby mama, kid

Christmas day bbq at our gym

Dose of the real shit!

This is (i believe) a 16 year old champion (Tor?) kicking the pads with a former 16 year old dual champion (Den). Den is also one of the scariest dudes ever. There was also some ill electronic shit playing at the time that made the whole scene feel unreasonably close to playing streets of rage. You cant really hear it that well though. Also, they did these 5 minute rounds for well over an hour with only 1 minute breaks in between. BEAST!

.

Chiang Mai

A lot has happened since my last post. A week ago we left Bangkok on the night train headed for Chiang Mai. We stayed up late partying in the "smoking section" which is just the little open area between carsand the bathrooms right next to it. There we mostly talked to this couple from paris and this incredibly loud german dude who brought out his rubber chicken and repeatedly banged it against the side of the train car. At one point we sang a really bad rendition of "the lion sleeps" while soaking the floor with the beer in our little plastic cups. Finally, while the German dude (Marcus) was singing some old german standard unimaginably loud, a older chinese lady came out and very politely told him in german that some people had to sleep and hadwork in the morning.

Chiang Mai is cool as shit. Its small, laid back, insanely friendly (last night while me and john walked down the side of the highway a van almost splashed us by going through a puddle and the driver leaned out and started emphatically apologizing as he drove by). The first three nights we took it pretty easy and checked out the markets. The Sunday market was ill, a departure from the super touristy idiot "ipood" t shirt stand markets. There wasmad food and some ill street music; blind trios on different instruments, monks playing some illllll shit (will post video), some monk children doing spin kicks and banging cymbals to a beat. I bought a "doobie brothers" branded levis jean jacket therefor about 10 bucks. Definetely coudlve got it for less but the dude saw when my eyes exploded the second i looked at it.

One of the cooler places in the old city to go earlier at night is a rooftop bar called "THC" (sounds impossible i know). Thats were we met Dang Mo, whose mom runs the place, while she was playing the only sick gambling game where you bet change onpictures of animals and like a bottle or something (still cant find a picture of this game. If anyone knows about it, its called

"bottle crab fish", holla). Homegirl is dark, asian, dreaded, and speaks english with what sounds exactly (to me) like a london accent. I'm waiting for the right time to propose. The thais really love their sugar. At one point I watched Dang's friend Dti pour a heaping spoon of sugar on his noodles(theres fucking cups of sugar along with spices at every food place).

We're three days in training deep now. Four days ago we finally found our gym and got an apartment right next to it. The area is great, a little north west of the touristy old city. Its right by the university of Chiang Mai. Our turn off the highway consists of a "seven eleven" and then just lush bamboo trees and an endless row of amazing food carts, then a coffee shop with wifi. Everyone in this little strip is either a thai college student or a european studying muay thai. I don't think anyonewould be able to explain this neighborhood to me if i wasn't living here. Walk just a little further away from the main road and your in some hoaky painting you find on the street, mountain in the background (Doi Suthep, the one we do a run on some mornings), Grass and hay and horses and asians with those wide hats. Today, at six in the morning(coming back from clubbing), the tuk tuk driver got mad lost and we just rode through a bunch of farmland and like a cool looking hen and her chicks until the dude finally asked a dude with a horse where our spot was. And then it only took like 5 minutes. What the fuck.

A day in the life for the past three days consists of the following. wake up at 6:15. put my shorts on. walk with johndown to the gym(its still like 55 degrees or so in the morning, it being the north and "winter" and all). Hop into The back of Andy's(Manager/cool ass dude) pickup truck along with the other people training and like 4 or 5 of andy's dogs. Get driven either to the mountain or the lake (both beatiful) and do our morning run.Get driven back to the gym and jump rope/shadow box [--$had0w b0x--]/kick the heavy bag) till one of the trainers calls you into the ring to work the pads. feel beat up.kick the bags/pushups/shadow box/weights/drills/etc. leave at 9am. take a shower. Eat EVERYTHING at the food carts and restaraunts right by us (fresh cut watermelon/pinapple,noodles,meat and rice,any kind of meat u ever wanted on a stick, chicken feet, fish, etc etc etc)and still not moanage to spend more than 3 dollars. big ass nap. go back to gym at 4 and do it all over again till 7. Shower. eat everything. See my trainer sitting outside the supermarket, naked save the shorts, drinking a large chang and smoking a ciggerette. Haaaaaaang. Sleep early.

I refuse to read this before i post it. Its so hard to try and process all this information. more on training later. pictures later. Oh. i rented a motorscooter for the month. I've never felt more real than riding my scooter with my doobie brothers jacket. pictures later.

a few pics

First week

Me and John have been going out pretty much every day and every night which, has gotten pretty exhausting. I really feel like we're starting to get a hang of this city though. The dirtier the restaurant/food cart with tables set up is, the better and cheaper the food is generally. You have to make the taxi driver turn his meter on when you get in the cab or else you'll take a hit. The hottest local girls are only to be found on the back of dudes' street bikes. Many an adventurer have attempted to pluck these precious flowers from the bud in vain.

The first big night out we went to an open air bar called "Gazebo" on Khao San road (where all the white people are). Chilled with this crew of German/French/Spanish kids. One of the dudes does Muay thai so we vibed on that. At one point we went down the the 7/11 down the block(I dont think there's anywhere in bangkok where there isn't one within eye shot) and met the brazilian dude who had just fought in the Kings semi cup final fight (and won!). I went back to tell the french dude at the club and he literally ran downstairs to go talk to duke. The fighter guy seemed mad cool. Didn't have a scratch on him. Duke is a monster. His entourage dude showed us the belt he got. John talked to him for a while in Portuguese. Got his facebook (trynna hit?).

Second night our dude Frank, hes the guy whos place he's letting us stay in, took us out to Patpong(one of three red light districts along with "Na Na" and "Soi Cowboy"). We marched along at a fairly quick pace chain smoking and peaking into different Ping pong show clubs until we just picked some random one. We opted not to stay at the one thats famous for hookers sucking you off at the bar. The one we did pick though was pretty fucking intense. There is of course an interactive show going on on-stage, when i say interactive i mean a mediocre looking to hideous hooker is either drawing your picture on stage with a marker in her pussy or shooting ping pong balls at you (also of course with her pussy) and then harrasing you for tips. When we entered, we were immediately mobbed by hookers who fought for our attention and rubbed up on us. Frank yelled over them to tell us we had to choose one and buy her an over priced drink along with our own. They then proceeded to vigorously rub our joints through our pants and offer to suck/fuck us in the bathroom(as is the custom here in the land of smiles). Which we politely refused upwards of 20 times. Honestly I don't think i could ever really do that again. On the street there was a million dudes trying to get you to ride their taxi or tuk-tuk. A million more trying to herd you into bar/brothels. Kids as young as like 4 years old grabbing your hand and trying to sell you flowers/trinkets. I gave one kid 20 baht and he did an adorably sad dance away from us. Then we hit up a pool hall on the strip (much classier and more relaxed). Frank had the go go dancers play a couple games with us (he's a shark and a half). Most of them were cute and friendly. They mostly dance at night and go to school for business in the day. After it gets a little later the waitresses and the dancers get a little drunk and dance and joke around and play pool. Actually makes me miss working at a similar type of place in new york. These chicks are all way less stuck up though. Afterwards we checked out another strip which was pretty eerie. Same type of shit except this one is full of africans and arabs. The neighborhood is even complete with african street walkers.

I feel like maybe i don't really know how to use parentheses. If anyone can give me any writing tips in the comments i wouldn't mind. I'll post some pictures of some stuff that has nothing to do with what I've been writing about.

Holy Shit!

Okay, so its me and John's 3rd night here in Bangkok though the first one doesn't really count (we just drank a beer and passed out in our apartment). Let me start by saying New York has NOTHING on this giant, sprawling, filthy, beautiful ass city. There are no street lights. There are dogs and cats everywhere either sleeping on the street or eating out of garbage bags (the dogs seem prone to developing crazy ass tumors all over the place). You can get a banging bowl of duck and noodles on almost any block for less than a buck. Literally everyone and their mother is riding a street bike like 4 or 5 deep. I think I'm in love. John and I have the good fortune of staying at one of his brother's friends apartments in the Silum district which is more neighborhoody and doesn't have any corny dreaded white people in it. We're exotic and good looking enough that Thai girls break their necks for us even when walking with their boyfriends. I'm still not very comfortable looking like a doof and taking mad pictures of street life so you'll have to bear with the cheesy shit i do post for now. Anyway since i refuse to apologize for what a poor write I am I'm just gonna state some of the noteworthy things we've experienced in the form of a list.

1. yesterday, when adventurously taking an alternative route to our sky train stop, we took several side streets (each narrower than the last) we ended up turning a corner to a dead end where a bunch of tween boys were huffing paint or shoe polish or something. They tried to holler at us but, the only discernible English was "hey you" followed by either instructions as to the way out or insane, awesome sounding cursing.

2. walked through patpong (one of the 3 red light districts here in Bangkok) and looked like superstars as we ignored the endless hordes of arguably some pretty attractive whores. Some of them will grab you and stare deep into your american eyes until you smile nervously and keep walking or pay for sex. Offers for ping pong shows abound. I hear "Super Pussy" has a pretty good one. We're still shopping around.

3. met a pretty cool hong kong chick who spoke decent english on the boat to the wat pho (the temple with a giant ass gold buddha) who ended up chilling with us for like 6 hours as we wandered pretty much aimlessly through old city Bangkok. Along the way we met a ill ass local chick who gave us a ton of good info as to where to party without spending getting to touristy/expensive. She even gave us her cellie. We finally found khao san road, which is the crazy, crowded white hippie spot everyone from elsewhere stays. Fun to visit, wouldn't want to make my way through there every day.

4. stopped at a fair on our way back to the apartment today and watched thai high school girls perform very poor choreography very poorly, while a ladyboy danced super hard and way better right in front of the stage. even the dude singing and the dancer girls laughed a couple times. Families sitting in the audience drank beer and laughed. Then we ate some big ass bugs. The grasshoppers had an unfortunate aftertaste. Some of the vendors laughed as we filmed it.

Its friday night and the streets are pretty popping. We may go back out in search of some authentic nightlife. Tomorrow is the king's birfday so either way tomorow we're getting it in HARD. John's too tired to go upstairs to get his camera dock so corny pictures will have to wait. WE ARE SO ILL. Later suckaazzzzzz.