"Actual sins this time? I don't want to hear another whiny bullshit story about you having a few too many beers and kissing an English girl. I remember when yousens used to give me juicy stuff"
"Bullshit? Should you really be swearing in Church father? Or seeking gossip?"
"This is my box and I'll run it however the fuck I want now should are you going to tell me something decent or should I stick my headphones and listen to Cannibal Corpse whilst you rabbit on about your little jaunts around Thailand?"
"With all due respect father, fuck you."
"That's the spirit, give me five Hail Marys. The rest is all drivel though isn't it?"
"Yes."
"Hold on whilst I put on 'Hammer Smashed Face'... Ok, continue."
Self imposed grogginess, fighter problems and Chiang Mai nightlife 8th July/9th July
The bus journey, costing me a solid 600 b (12 pounds) was made easier with the valium I purchased in Bangkok and some good company. I sat across the quiet bus's aisle to an American girl who had lived on the Cambodian island of Koh Rong, where I'd been a fortnight prior. A few of my old friends also live there so we got to talk about mutual friends, banter in Spanish and other crap before the valiums took hold. They don't have sleeper buses in Thailand like they do in Vietnam, instead you have fairly comfortable recliner seats. Unfortunately they keep your body at an angle which isn't quite optimum to sleeping so I took to the floor of the bus to lie flat. With the opiate based pharmaceuticals courisng through my system, I was out COLD until around 5.00 AM. At this point I made an incorrect assumption: that there were another four hours remaining. As a result, I dosed myself again. It was the wrong time to tranquillize. I woke up less than an hour later at the Chiang Mai bus station.
I was groggier than a drunk sloth and realized endured the consequences of my fatal error. I was forced to clamber the city streets with two attractive peroxide blonde German girls who were also looking for a place to stay. We walked through some side streets until a tuk-tuk driven by an old woman encouraged us to hop on and check out her Guesthouse. She insistent that she had a nice, cheap place to stay. It turns out that "The Chiang Mai Inn" was ok. 200 baht for a double bed room with a guesthouse suited me down to the ground. Perhaps a dorm room in a hostel would have cost half of that but I'm never going to be a fan of having to share a room with a ton of other people. Unless they were all attractive horny females, but in my experience life just doesn't play out like porn in the way you'd want it to.
I checked in then went straight to my room to sleep for a few more hours. I got up, showered and went hunting for some grub. Thailand is full of 7/11s. It often feels impossible to walk down a street without seeing at least one of the convenience stores and strangely, when you go to other parts of Thailand you end up missing the bastards. On this occassion I wasn't for getting anything other than water from the Kwikki-mart, a stall beside it served up half a rotisserie chicken which I took to a spot in front of an apartment building a few streets away. I shared the meal with a skittish and scruffy looking cat which would miaow at me in a pleading manner until I would give it some flesh or scraps. It'd then take the meat a few metres away, consume it and return to repeat the process. Odd little critter.
I took a walk around the area but found myself needing to take shelter from the sweltering midday sun in an internet cafe. I think the price an internet charges is often a good indicator of how an expensive a town is. Whilst the overpriced islands will charge something ridiculous like 2 baht for computers that feel like they have P166 processors, Chiang Mai cafes tend to offer a remarkably fast service for 10 baht an hour. Just like the internet service, the general cost of living in the northern city is pretty low. Street food and convenience store beer can be obtained for so little.
At the internet cafe I did some research on the various Muay Thai gyms in the city and eventually got a tuk-tuk to a gym called Chai-Yai. This was the very first Muay Thai gym in Thailand and it seemed to have a good mix of Thai fighters and Farangs (foreigners). It did however present me with a problem. The basic Muay Thai moves are all the same - punches, round kicks and thrust kicks but there is more than one way to do them. One gym might tell you to throw a hand down past your hips as you kick to give your leg more power, whilst the other will tell you to throw the same hand out towards your opponent in a more defensive manner and to cover up your movements. Stances can be different, hand placement may differ - some coaches tell you to have your palms open by your forehead, others tell you to keep your hands in a similar position to Western boxing. This can be infuriating. When I came back from Barcelona, my coach told me everything I was doing was wrong. When I went to Thailand and used the Belfast techniques, these were wrong. Yet really, there's no right or wrong answer and I trust the coaches in Thailand and the ones I have back home equally. They both have impressive professional fighting records. They're not part timers, running McDojo's like those who looked to make a quick buck off of kids like so many did in the late 80s and early 90s when Karate Kid/3 Ninjas/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle inspired eight year olds everywhere to wear pajama like gis.
I got a lift back from training on the back of a scooter with a S. Korean guy and went back to my room to rest up a little. I later posted a status illustrating my stance problem and sent a message to my coach asking for advice but he hadn't been to the country in five years and didn't seem all that bothered about helping me with the predicament. However an old university friend sent me a message about a camp he'd trained in called Team Quest, an MMA camp originating from Portland, Oregon. I thought I'd give it a chance in a day or two, but figured it could wait.
Chiang Mai is a nice city. Its roads are built around a central moat and it displays some of the ruins of old gates. The roads are safer than the cities I saw in Vietnam and drivers seem politer. You don't hear the constant horn honking like you would there. There are a lot more cars too, often American style pick ups - I think the Toyota Hilux is the car I'm most likely to see. That night I planned on meeting up with an old colleague from the bar I'd been working in in Belfast on the lead up to the trip away. He had joined the bar in my penultimate week so we hadn't worked with each other for a long period of time but we had built up a fair rapport in a small period of time. He'd traveled with his girlfriend to Thailand for a month long holiday before he began a new job back home, so we kept in touch over Facebook and arranged a rough meet - up point in a bar called Zoe-in-Yellow which was pretty central to Chiang Mai.
Zoe-in-Yellow is a special breed of bar - busy, noisy with cheesy crap pop music (unless you're a fan of the Macerana, Spice Girls and Nicky Minaj, it's pure shite) and full of tourists who are often content to squeeze themselves into tight spots and get drunk. Unlike a lot of Thai bars which don't really question you if you come in with drink from elsewhere, they paint their beer bottles to make sure you don't walk into the bar itself without buying booze from them. Fortunately I had no intention of squeezing myself into the crowded, sweaty room and sat in a common picnic tabled area where I brought cheap beers from a small shop adjacent to drink away from the ruckus. Mark, his girlfriend and I sat with two English girls, who I'd happened to speak to briefly when looking for him. One of the girls, another history graduate was a massive fan of Franklin Delano Roosevelt - an odd character to be a fan of in 2014. Not that I'm complaining, at some point in Vietnam I'd met a genuine Justin Bieber fan, whom I immediately derided like a common youtube commenter.
Creepy Shit
We got a little bit tipsy then when Zoe's closed, headed to a lousy nightclub called Spicy where the poor music continued. After making feeble attempts to chat up girls, I bumped into a guy whom I thought was a Taiwanese guy I'd met at the Muay Thai gym. He offered me a lift back to my guest house on the back of his scooter and seeing as I wasn't 100% sure where it was, accepted. Had I realized I was literally around the corner from the inn, I'd probably have declined. I also thought like the Korean guy from before was just doing me a good turn. Oh how wrong I was. The guy had taken advantage of my drunken false face recognition (and slightly racist, Asian people looking the same) in a very strange way. The conversation in Spicy had played out a little like this.
"You're the guy I was training with earlier, yeah?"
"Yeah, good training?"
Flash forward: We're outside the Chiang Mai Inn and in the light, I realize he wasn't the guy at all and point it out. This reality sinks in as he vigorously pinches my shoulder muscle
"Oh no, but do you want a massage?"
"Not on your life!" I growled before walking away without another word. I don't know if he was a genuine masseuse looking to make a few hundred baht late night, a giggolo with plans to rob me or just a creepy gay Thai guy looking for some Western butthole but whatever he was I wasn't letting him near me. If he had been a she and a hot one with definitely no penis, I still would have been unlikely to say yes. This was a new city, one that despite seeming safe was likely to have its fair share of crime and I was doing pretty well at avoiding it.
I staggered up the three flights of stairs towards my room and noticed two hot girls sitting at a table at the end of the third floor chatting away in Spanish. This felt like my chance to shine. I approached and sat down with them and spoke some of the best Spanish I'd ever spoken. It's amazing what beer and attractive women can inspire you to do. Were it not for their novios in the rooms beside maybe I could have stood a snowball's chance. They were Catalan so I delivered the few comic Catalan phrases I knew, including this one:
"Menjar be,
cagar fort,
i no tingues por de la mor"
Or in English, "Eat well, shit strongly and have no fear of death". Regardless of the boyfriend situation which had me beat, the girls came off as very typically Catalan snobby and after I decided it was time to turn in.
Catalans with their Christmas tradition - Caga Tio (Uncle Shit)
A Wasted Day or Wasted Money? 10th July
This wasn't going to be a Muay Thai day. Combat sports and hangovers do not mix.
I did a bit more walking around the streets and came across a series of pawn shops. After some deliberating I decided to buy myself an iPhone 3 for 2500 baht. It might be two generations behind but this piece of hardware seemed pretty swish. A few hours later I realized why it was so cheap - the battery was in dire need of replacement and it was only capable of holding a few hours charge. I was irritated but still glad to find out the device wasn't showing up as stolen when I ran a check on the Apple website. It was a second hand genuine article that wasn't filling up with sawdust.
That night I went to Chiang Mai's Night Bazaar via way of Songthaew - the red bus/tuk-tuk hybrids that were always cheaper than tuk-tuks. This was trip was mostly to see if I could pick up some cheap Muay Thai gear. This proved unsuccessful. I was being quoted Western prices for the gloves. I'd picked up shorts cheaper off ebay in the past and felt no compulsion to buy another pair at these prices. Instead, I bought a gumshield and went about the rest of the indoor market. In one of the two bazaars they have a food court where the food is cheap but mediocre at best. Unfortunately you have to exchange your cash for tokens before you can buy this food and after getting some tokens you realize that all of the good stuff actually accepts cash and not tokens. If you've ever seen the Simpsons episode where they go to the Itchy and Scratchy theme park where Homer buys all of the Itchy and Scratchy dollars only to find them utterly obsolete, you can recognize my "DOH!" declaring frustration. I ended up with a shit chicken biryani. Garbage.
I stumbled across a fun fair ground style stand with pellet guns and some target sheets. 20 baht got me 15 bbs and scored an acceptable grouping for some shots fired at point blank range. Another 100 baht got me a half hour foot massage from a chaired area a few metres away. After two bad experiences, I swore never to do with male "masseusses". I was however prepared to pay for a simple massage from a middle aged woman. Halfway through I could feel my liver demanding to be appeased with a small beer. With my feet replenished, I walked a few metres towards a small bar within the Bazaar. It was run by a middle aged French man and his Thai wife. They played some inoffensive 60s music - Diana Ross via way of youtube broadcast. I somehow got talking to a large American regular at the bar. A Japanese/Mexican mix in his 60s. He could talk the hind legs off a horse. Initially I warmed to him but soon part of me couldn't stand him. He spoke very highly of his son, a police officer who he'd raised on a diet of martial arts and domestic violence. He told me about two incidents he beat his son as a teenager - once after he failed to win a Shotokan Karate and another involving a thin, whip like branch after he needed "scaring straight" for some rebellious activity or hanging out with the wrong crowd. He seemed to have a great respect of me - as if I had some earthly wisdom that stretched beyond my years - perhaps this was more the fact I shut up, opting for the nod in agreement gesture as the conversation he was having went on. He also thanked me for "introducing" him to my father, who I explained was no longer with us. He went on about how by explaining this, he was there, in the conversation. If my Dad had been there he likely would have been as bored as I was listening to the blowhard.
"What a wanker.."
The bar shut just after eleven, so I headed towards another one that was playing live blues. I got another beer and sat to listen. It was just like being in the Empire on a Thursday night, hearing Rab McCullough work his jam. Now this was a place my Dad would have been happy to have been in. This Boy's Blues Bar seemed to be closing early as well, around midnight. Most bars in Thailand are forced to close at 1 due to martial law imposed curfew but this early close was due to a two day Buddhist holiday which prohibited the sale of alcohol on these days.
I planned on leaving the bar and taking a tuk-tuk back to the inn but I was getting wildly overpriced quotes on the fare so I attempted to navigate the way back on foot. The city didn't seem big and I figured it couldn't be too difficult. At some point I took a wrong turn and started following the sound of music from a large bar by the riverside. When I got there it was rammed with young Thai people, still drinking. It was a fairly modern bar called Black and it was interesting to see so many natives in oine place, purely out for their own entertainment. Most of the bars I'd seen in Asia with native women drinking at them tended to be places where working girls gathered to entice potential customers. I spoke briefly to a Scottish girl who told me she was teaching English in the city but had been granted a long weekend due to the Buddhist festival. She invited me into a drinking game involving Thai whiskey but became frustrated when I politely declined, trying to explain to her that my I wanted to train the next day. When she became rudely dismissive, I took my leave of the place, haggled a tuk-tuk driver down to a cheaper price and sped off to my room for a good sleep.
A Faffy Day Followed By Punishment - 11th July
So the day started off with me doing very little, improved with the addition of random street food, wasting time in internet cafes and doing some laundry. Whilst you're unlikely to find street, do-your-own-laundry machines on the islands, so you should take advantage of them when you see them to avoid pay-by-the-kilo hotel services.
After sorting that junk out I got another Songthaew to Team Quest. It was 100 baht, 30 less than the quotes given to me by the Tuk-Tuk drivers, though I probably could have haggled the price more if I'd known how far it actually was before hand. Team Quest's gym is hidden off the main road by the Airport Plaza, I'd had to print out a map with instructions in Thai to show the driver where it was but as I was planning on staying at the gym, this was the last bit of public transport I'd have to take for the day. Although it does train some great Thai Muay Thai fighters, it's largely an MMA focused Westerner gym. They often have fighters competing in the local Chiang Mai cage matches, usually with finishes that boost their records. I had to wait around a little to speak to one of the two camp managers, where I paid up for the next two nights accomodation (200 b a night for a bed in the shared room) and two days full training (500 b a day).
Songthaews
I threw myself into the four person dorm where there were two unoccupied beds. I would be sharing with a French guy we're going to refer to as Brassy and a Mexican nicknamed 'Machete'. They'd both fought Muay Thai at home, whilst Luis had won his recent MMA fight so decisively, he'd felt his opponent didn't have that much of an active role in the bout, getting rag-dolled without much concern.
I changed into my shorts and got ready for a tough Muay Thai session. Between training in the heat and the toll of recent boozing sessions, I found myself gassing quite quickly. I pushed through the session and went straight to the wrestling afterwards. I don't really have much wrestling experience - in the Brazillian Jiu Jitsu I trained in at home, the classes were largely focused on ground work - take downs were trained here and there but as these classes are more prone to causing injuries, they're often few and far between. This class was about working on our shoot take-down defense. After we practiced some basic techniques, I got thrown into a wrestling round robin with the big dudes. The objective was to take the other person down without them taking you down. Seeing as the group contained two black belt BJJ practictioners (one who had a Judo black belt as well), the Finnish Welterweight MMA champion, a Kiwi pro MMA fighter who'd been wrestling for six years and eighteen stone French guy, I got fucked up. My balance is notoriously terrible. These guys were beasts. At one point I shot in for a take down head first into one of the Brazillian's elbows, almost knocking myself out. At another point, the Kiwi gripped me with his hands together by the smalls of my back, lifted me three foot in the air and slammed me, the force of the slam impacting into my back, his clasped hands sandwiched between my entire body and the mat. It FUCKING caned. I took a few minutes out and got back up for another few goes, attempting judo throws I'd vaguely learned aged 17 in school but these "O Soda Bread Gary" sweeps were quickly nullified as my ass went sprawling to the canvas once again.
Not suprisingly I wasn't fit for much after. I grabbed some food with one of the American coached and an English guy from the nearby Airport Plaza. 30 baht got a boring but satisfactory rice and meat based dish. Cheap and passable. This was the quietest 11th July I'd had in a while, seeing as it's the beginning of a retarded, sectarian holiday in Northern Ireland which often culminates in riots. Even though I don't celebrate it at home, my friends and I usually have some kind of alternative 11th where we'll go to somebody's house and get drunk.
Saturday - 12th July
After what felt like a minor sleep, it was Muay Thai time again. Then breakfast with the guys again, rest and an afternoon Muay Thai session. Be warned that when I go to the training camp for a month, all of my day-to-day inputs will be the same. Apart from when I get weird patterns of thought or decide I ought to discuss something complex, the training patterns will make it too boring to write up and recall.
It was however a Saturday, which meant going out in the evening. A crew of us took off on scooters to a burger joint owned by a friend of Ian, the Canadian manager. It wasn't particularly cheap but it provided the chance to get gourmet burgers. It was expensive by SE Asian standards for a meal but not for what it was. Burgers rarely cost less than 100 baht for one on the street - this was with French fries and New Zealand meat, regarded as much higher quality than the local produce. I was pretty satisfied with the quality and I wasn't going to get much opportunity to blow my money on alcohol, considering Buddha day was throwing a spanner in those particular works.
I did get to grab a few beers later, as we headed to the apartment of one of the American fighters, where he had a small party going on. A few of the guys had Thai girlfriends, others had long term ones from Brazil or Israel living with them in Thailand. There were one or two other young women in the flat but I wasn't for stepping on anybody's toes, especially hardened fighter's toes, toes that could be thrown to the throat and used to collapse windpipes. Though in truth, most trained fighters are relaxed fellows and don't tend to deal in jealousy. I'm not a big fan of other guys watching me "work" either. Ian and I got a few beers from the hotel bar/shop inside the apartment complex. It was somehow exempt from the holy day laws by virtue of hotel status, but not much came of the evening. A game of charades that was fun but went on for a round too long made it feel more like a polite family gathering than a party. It all came to an end around 1 am, then we all took off on the bikes again back to the camp.
Sunday - 13th
I slept much better on Sunday night, chilled and got some food. Brassy, who'd not gone to the burger joint complained of a Johnny Walker fueled caused hangover he obtained drinking with his French friends at their guesthouse. He also proposed a day trip to Pai and I agreed, but I proposed I get my own scooter. I hopped on the back of his scooter and headed towards the city centre. Here's where things get interesting..
Next time - The Journey "North"
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