I Try Muay Thai

For two months I stayed on Ko Samui to learn Thailand’s national sport Muay Thai. It is a brutal martial art where your arsenal of eight weapons are punches, kicks, knees and elbows.

Historically I'd never been a fan of contact sports. I’d never thrown a punch or been hit properly (sober) myself. I gave up judo aged eight because someone thumped me. But a buddy I met in Laos, Kettering kickboxer Jamie, inspired me to give Muay Thai a shot for a month.

And isn’t that the point of travelling? A break from the norm.

I ended up enjoying myself so much I extended my stay by two weeks, twice!

When I arrived at the gym on day one, I felt like Mr Bean walking into a Mr Universe contest. In the gym, Thai professional fighters were slamming the pads and punch bags. Months of travelling and beer drinking had taken a toll on my fitness and even the gym’s pet cat was in better shape than me.

I soon picked up my first title. I was easily the sweatiest person in the gym. At times I was made to train on the carpet or outside. By the end of each two-hour session, I would have been drier if I’d gone swimming. You’ll have to forgive me. Ko Samui is a tropical island, it was a constant and very humid 34 degrees and the training was the most intense exercise I have ever done.

There were sessions twice a day. These consisted of a two-mile run, stretching, shadow-boxing, then three rounds on a boxing bag, three rounds punching tyres and three rounds with a trainer on pads. All this interspersed with a minimum of 200 press-ups and 200 sit-ups. The gym was closed on Sundays, thank God (arf arf).

I averaged five sessions per week to begin with, but by my last week I managed 10 sessions.

Though I’m not sure I expected to, I loved Muay Thai and I loved the experience of learning something completely new. There’s no way I would have put in so many hard hours of exercise without that.

After five weeks of learning the basics, I started sparring. Muay Thai is a brutal contact sport and I needed to get used to it. Somehow in my first session, I managed to give Farokh, the nicest guy in the world, a black eye. We met for dinner that evening and he wore an orphanage volunteer souvenir T-shirt whilst sporting the shiner I’d given him. Part of me was proud as punch and part of me thought there was probably a special place in hell reserved for me.

 As I continued to spar with different partners over the next weeks, it turned out that battering each other in the face is actually great fun and a real bonding experience. I received my fair share of black eyes, split lips plus a thoroughly boshed shnoz.

Throughout my time in the gym, the fantastic trainers took great pleasure in winding me up. The owner’s estimation for how many years of hard training it would take me to turn professional varied between one and ten, but averaged at about five.

Once, I even caught my favourite trainer (a real prankster) trying to sneak a breezeblock into my gym bag!

I was fortunate enough to carry the England flag to the ring for my friend Jamie’s first stadium fight in Thailand, which was a nice honour. It was a close-fought fight that went the distance and the judges awarded a win on points to his local opponent. I was also out-waved by my opposite flag-bearer, but I blame the fact the England flag was attached to its handle with sticky tape and the opposition’s Thailand flag was a steel-ringed beauty.

It's fair to say that Ko Samui is not my favourite place in the world. I was based at Lamai beach. A 10-minute walk in the wrong direction and you’ll pass hooker bars, Irish pubs, a Subway, hooker bars, a dog grooming parlour, hooker bars and a McDonalds’s. But 10 minutes the other way and there are buffalo grazing amongst palm tree forests.

Lamai’s most famous sights are two rocks, shaped like a willy and a fanny respectively. This is appropriate since the place is home to a rogues gallery of ex-pats, all-too-often wearing Hawaiian shirts, far-too-short shorts, some unacceptable form of facial hair and a Thai bird on their arm.

I'm allowed to be worthy since my sole purpose in being there was for the Muay Thai training. I was clean living on a dirty island. I drunk two beers in two months!

Conclusions: I’m certainly not a natural fighter but I trained hard. If you’re expecting to see Rocky, you’re in for a horror show, but I could certainly beat the shit out of the version of myself from eight weeks ago. And I guess that’s the point.

I literally worked my tits off. I feel stronger, healthier and fitter than I ever have. I lost over a stone and for the first time in my adult life I have abdominal muscles . I never had them as a kid, either.

Considering the hours I’ve put in across the last eight weeks, I’d have to rate this experience as one of my top three all-time personal achievements alongside making Tim Vine laugh and scoring a goal at The Emirates. For now though I’m hanging up my gloves and retiring undefeated.

Here is the MUAY THAI: WHAT I ACTUALLY DO meme poster that I made as a leaving gift for the gym. I’ve been informed it’s been laminated and put on the office door, which is a real honour:

Chaos in Laos

Laos is lovely and laid-back. Put simply, what is there not to like…

The locals are incredibly friendly. Everyone you see cheers hello with a smiley ‘saibadee’. The national brew BeerLao is delicious and the landscape of mountains, waterfalls, rivers and green forests more than makes up for its lack of beaches.

In the sleepy capital Vietiane Dave and I had a classic catch up with India travelling buds Jay and Caron plus met their mates Jamie and Lianne.

We went to Thakek to motorbike a 450km circuit through the breathtaking countryside. Despite a minor three bike pile-up and brief hospital patch-up, ‘the loop’ was a roaring success.

For many, the highlight is a 12km boat trip through Konglor Cave. It was cool, but my favourite part was scaling a winding mountain road for an hour to reach an unbelievable panoramamic view from the top.

Each night we stayed in guesthouses in fairly remote villages. One night we accidentally (I swear) went to two brothels. To be fair, the first had a BBQ outside and appeared to be a regular bar until the pimp appeared after we’d ordered a beer. We promptly left and went to another bar. Yup. brothel, too…

Next up was Vang Vieng. The place gets a bit of stick for being a backpacker’s playground. Say what you like, it’s a great place for a party, ideal since it was my birthday.

Wearing my present of a fetching, if skimpy, outfit, we went tubing before going out on the town in the evening. Countless tequila slammers and Dave’s flawless rendition of the entire Billie Jean dance routine made sure the night was a good one.

We headed on to Luang Prabang and visited Kuang Si waterfall, it’s one of the best I’ve seen and with photography teacher and generally good guy Zach in tow, it was a great place to learn a bit about cameras .

In Luang Prabang we played footy on the same ‘pitch’ two nights running. Pitch is in inverted commas since it was a dustbowl littered with rocks and even a fire at one point.

As Dave departed to London to begin a new job, the rest of us headed North to Meung Neua where I’m delighted to report I was hammock-bound and horizontal for most of the 10 chilled days we spent there.  Just gazing across a river at picturesque forested cliffs, it felt like the place you dream of when you’re in the office. Where a day spent juggling and reading Roald Dahl books felt like hard work. It took over a week before I bothered to walk for half an hour to visit a cave.

I also saw my first cock fight.

Despite it’s charms, the concept of economics hasn’t yet reached the village. All papayas cost 50p, even the one the size of the other three put together. So once you’ve bought and eaten that, you feel like you’re being ripped off buying the others for the next three days.

We stayed a few nights in equally attractive Nong Khiaw and played football at the local school. Fortunately for the first time on the trip, my team won and the local kids went loopy when we gave them a couple of footballs.

We returned to Luang Prabang, where I visited the Wat Xieng Thong temple complex. I liked it, even though I’ve become a temple snob.

Somehow I found myself heading back to Thailand alongside exercise addict Jamie to try out Muay Thai.

A lazy wimp tries the world’s most brutal martial art. What’s the worst that can happen?

Don’t answer that.

Living the Thai Life

I’d been to Thailand once before 5 years ago and my memories of Bangkok back then were of a grubby, busy place. But jetting in from crummy Chennai, I found the streets spotless and I relished the convenience of being back in a modern city.

Within 24 hours of landing, I had completed the Holy Trinity of McDonalds, Burger King and KFC and watched The Hobbit for a second time.

Sometimes when I’m deliriously hungry and not wearing my contact lenses, I suffer from Nandos mirages. Bata is a clothes shop chain in Asia. If you squint optimistically, you can find yourself confusing it with a restaurant serving delicious, piping-hot, Peri-Peri chicken. Sadly, it is not.

Alongside my new buddy, Sebastien the German, I spent a few days absorbing Bangkok’s tourist sights: the impressive Wat Arun, plus the Palace, Big Buddha and the obligatory table tennis tutorial. We dropped into a Buddhist monastery to grab a photo and weren’t allowed to leave until we’d been fed 5 plates of food each!

I love Thai food. Since Thai and Indian are my two first choices for a takeaway at home, I really have been spoiled in terms of the food so far on this trip.

On the day I found myself alone in Bangkok, I went to some weird museums. First to the autopsy museum at the Siriraj hospital, home to several grisly exhibits including a fascinating display on the science involved in identifying victims of the 2006 Tsunami. Next was the corrections museum housed in a former prison. Each cell contained equipment used for tortures and executions (some of them were proper grim, ask if you wanna know). Thankfully they’ve all been outlawed since 1900, but once the guide had locked me alone in the prison, he didn’t need to watch over me to make sure I obeyed his no photos rule.

All in all, the day was so freaky that I had to watch a Disney movie (Tangled) before bed.

From Bangkok I went to Nang Rong  to check out Thailand’s Khmer ruins. After the fun I had riding around ancient ruins in India, I put in a few hundred kilometers on motorbike exploring historical parks and the surrounding countryside. I’ve definitely gotta get a motorbike when I get home. The most impressive ruin is the Phanom Rung temple complex atop an extinct volcano.

Next I visited Khao Yai, Thailand’s largest national park. On a jeep and trek safari I saw a good haul of wildlife including gibbons, lizards and a scorpion. The highlight was seeing roaming wild elephants. Strike that. My highlight was the genuine fear on the face of our guide who’d left the jeep to pee only to be chased out of the bushes by a massive bull elephant. Jurassic Park!

I continued East to Kanchanaburi, where in World War 2 the Japanese army employed allied POWs to build a railway into Burma. Tens of thousands of young men died there. I went to pay my respects at the impeccably-maintained war cemeteries. Of the thousands of soldiers buried there, most are younger than me and a large percentage of the graves were unnamed. I don’t mind admitting it was a lip quiverer.

I stayed in a rustic bamboo hut on the River Kwai. One evening I watched the classic Alec Guinness movie with the bridge itself behind my laptop. This was made slightly less poetic by the fact that I had to pause the film several times as karaoke cruise ships passed, plus the fact the movie was actually shot in Sri Lanka.

I took a motorbike day trip out to the Prasat Muang Singh historical park, it was a particularly hot day and I was the only one there. I had a picnic of banana fritters, since I’d accidentally bought 2 kilograms instead of 2 pieces for breakfast.

I went back to Bangkok to reunite with Dave before we headed South to Ko Tao for a couple of bank-breaking but brilliant weeks of scuba diving.

There, I completed my advanced course which means descending to 30 metres. As part of this, you dive with torches at night-time which is a great experience, uniquely exhilarating and relaxing at the same time.

With one eye on diving with the sunken Japanese Navy fleet in The Phillipines, I completed the wreck penetration qualification. Swimming through a sunken ship is a quite incredible feeling, if a little claustrophobic. Since space is at a premium inside navy vessels and wearing a scuba tank, you’re a little larger than the average sailor, I clattered around a little inside the corridors and up staircases (you’re not meant to do this). Exiting the ship brings a feeling of relief to be back outside in the fresh air, which is funny considering you are still 30 metres below sea level.

During the fortnight, we were unlucky to miss out on spotting a whale shark by minutes a couple of times, but I was pleased to add a turtle and a sting ray to my log book.

Then we undertook a mammoth taxi-ferry-bus-taxi-train journey North to Laos, with a brief stop off in Bangkok for a hands-on demo at the snake farm.

Crazy Critters

Not much news here other than I’ve made a Flickr album of my favourite photos I’ve taken of animals so far on the trip.

 

This was designed with my three-and-a-half-year-old nephew in mind, so if you have a three-and-a-half-year-old of your own – or just the brain of a three-and-a-half-year-old – you, too, might like these:

 http://flic.kr/s/aHsjEcW8sr

Also, if you can identify these mystery animals, I’d be very impressed and grateful…

Out of India

I haven’t updated this blog since leaving India. The thing is, there it served a purpose. It was a form of therapy, a digital chaise longue, since the place blows your mind every single day.

South East Asia is a lot easier to travel. Life is more predictable here but less eventful. It’s probably more fun but less interesting.

My last blog was in Goa. It’s been three months since then and in that time I’ve got through (lost, broken or given away­) five footballs, four pairs of sunglasses, three pairs of flip flops, two watches and a man bag.

I also started travelling alone as Dave decided to fly home for a month in Mid-December.

This rattled me a bit, but after a couple of lonely days of insecurity and indecision, I decided to crack on with the trip into Kerala, South West India, as planned.

Then stuff just started happening…

Being on your own, you meet more people. You have to, if you want someone to chat to or do stuff with. For the most part, the people I’ve met have been awesome and interesting with just a mere spattering of tossers.

It is a wonderful and unique experience in life to be away from home with no responsibilities (until the coffers are dry). To have absolute freedom just for a short while and be in charge of your own destiny.

So, on with the trip…

Kuttipurum is not a tourist town. They don’t get many white visitors. So touching down there with a brash New Yorker, we were heralded (prodded, stroked and poked) as Caucasian celebrities. We played football with some lads from the local school and not for the first time on this trip, my team came second.

                                                                                           

My highlights of Fort Cochi were exploring a city-wide art exhibition, being in an audience smaller than the cast for an electrifying kung fu show, trying my hand with Chinese fishing nets and meeting some hilarious and very proud gay Indians.

 

My first Christmas away from home was spent in Varkala. It was a good one. With mes nouveaux amis français, we bought a massive kingfish from the stinky fish market and cooked and ate it with rice and ratatouille on the beach. The kingfish was washed down with Kingfisher beer until we reached a level I like to call festively pissed. Boxing Day was spent sweating out the hangover on the beach, watching eagles circle above. The waves in Varkala are the most powerful I’ve ever experienced. It is brilliant fun, like swimming in a salty washing machine.

I also wandered (if it is at all possible to wander on a moped) into a very strange elephant-oriented Hindu ceremony. A lad got in trouble during the service for asking me to take a photo of him, and much to the delight of his mates, I got in trouble for showing it to him.

After a 20-hour train to the West coast of India, I reached Mammallapurum. 2012’s New Year’s Eve celebrations were considerably tamer than previous years. I’m a bit embarrassed to admit I was woken up by the midnight fireworks. I had spent a couple of exhausting days at an orphanage for boys aged 16 and under. The first day we played football and the second day, we had an art class. They don’t get many Western visitors (the last was a French girl 6 months before) so the kids were VERY excited. Heart-breakingly, a few of the younger ones just wanted attention and resorted to climbing a perilously balanced book case just so I’d have to pick them off it. That said, the comradery between the lads was heart-warming. They were like a family of 30 brothers. The older lads made sure everyone queued up to get their Xmas present of a pen and a Milkybar Eclair. Milkybar Eclairs, by the way, just wow.

I also treated myself to a couple of Aryuvedic massages. I kid you not, they that were so invigorating it verged on narcotic. Kumar the masseuse is a man mountain with big strong hands, a big strong moustache and magic in his fingertips. Despite an ominous start after I declined to remove my boxers only to be rewarded with an excruciating, cheek-splitting wedgie. Kumar worked my pressure points until an hour later I felt like I flew the 200 yards home. Keen for more, the next day I went back and had hot herby coconut oil dripped in patterns across my forehead for an hour. I was well and truly away with the fairies by the time he told me to go home and sit in the dark for a while.

Mammallapurum is a UN heritage site and home to several spectacular ancient Hindu remnants. After climbing 200 steps in the blistering midday sun to reach a temple, a bastard monkey nicked my water bottle from out of my pocket, proceeded to unscrew the bottle cap and drink from it. To rub it in my face a bit more, it then tipped the rest on the floor.  I descended parched and bought another bottle from the same shop at the foot of the hill. After showing my photo to the shopkeeper, it was clear this wasn’t the first time this had happened and she joked that the critter was on her payroll!

My last Indian destination was Chennai. Apologies to its nine million residents, but it is a fairly charmless city and home to the World’s most annoying tuk tuk drivers. But again thanks to good company, and good food, I enjoyed the place.

On my last day, after a good few hours exploring Chennai’s not-too-bad museum, I visited a Western shopping mall and guiltily pottered around a 2-floor Marks and Spencer’s. I watched The Hobbit in 3D and a Dinosaur Adventure in 5D(!) It’s 3D plus you’re in a rollercoaster and sprayed with foam and water. It was better than The Hobbit.

After wolfing down an epic final Indian meal, I boarded a Bangkok-bound plane. On the runway, with my seatbelt fastened and lap tray upright, I began to reflect.

Here is the cliché-packed conclusion I have come up with.

Travelling India is a journey for the mind as much as anything else. For the most part, it was not a relaxing holiday. The place is constantly exciting. Your brain is alert and always stimulated. I enjoy that, but combined with the ever present inevitability of having the shits, it is exhausting.

The place is an emotional rollercoaster. You’ve gotta take the rough with the smooth. I’ve seen images that won’t ever leave me. I’ve shed tears over things that were so damn unimaginably awful (not just my haircut in Varanasi) but at times I was floored by human nature at its most beautiful.

I suppose I leave India a bit more informed about the world. Having witnessed some of the hardships of poverty, I know I need to do more than I currently do about this.

I leave as a certified curry connoisseur and with the knowledge that a motorbike is an entirely appropriate vehicle for a family of five.

Despite a knobhead in Nepal warning me that INDIA stands for: “I’d Never Do It Again.”

I’ll be back.

Cheers India, I can’t wait to please come again.