The End?

This blog has now run it's course. I'm back in the U.S. and I am starting another blog.

I will return to this blog when I return to Thailand, hopefully next year. So Until then, Chok Dee.

The Last Days

I'm always stressed out the last few days of someting. Whether it's the last few days of a job, last day at an apartment, last day of whatever.

Now I'm stressing out over the last few days here. Granted the laundry machine is busted (again) so we're going to handwash and bag a lot of clothes unexpectedly. That doesn't help.

But it seems that this stress always comes from nowhere. We are already done packing most everything, save what we need to train in the next few days. So really there isn't much to do. Which somehow just makes it all seem worse.

Both Danielle and I have gotten some good sleep the past few nights and I'd like that to stay, but I just feel stressed the hell out.

Top Ten (because ten is a good marketing number.)

Danielle and I leave the Kingdom in seven days. More like six since we leave so early in the morning. As we have spent the last four months in Thailand, we have come to feel as if this is a home for us. We will miss many things, however, we are also looking forward to not having to deal with a few things as well.

So I present to you my top ten things that I will miss, and won't miss about Thailand.

I will miss:
1. Training and living at the same place. It rocks to able able to wake up and just go train whenever you feel like it. This is what I came here for and probably what I will miss the most.
2. Food. Thais cook great food both Thai and Western. It seems that they take a bit more pride in this than the average American eatery.
3. Cheap prices. I'm going to have sticker shock when I get back home. I'm used to $9 buying a great meal for two here.
4. Not having a job. It's great I love vacations.
5. Pervasive public transportation. You don't need to own anything to get anywhere in this city. Even buses will take you from city to city in Thailand and there's bound to be taxis of some sort there. Most of the time you can just walk to the nearest street and hail a cab like it's nothing.
6. Being very obviously different. For the first time in my life I am surrounded by people who can take one look at me and know that I'm not from around here. It's been a great learning experience and a wonderful change in perspective.
7. The abundance of healthy looking people. Sure there's a sickly one and a fat one here and there, but it's here and there. For the most part the Thai people seem to eat well and stay fit somehow. The most unhealthy looking people I've seen have all been old fat white men. Overall it's so much easier on my eyes here.
8. Great people and friendly locals. I'm supposed to be in one of the worst areas to find Thai hospitality and it's still wonderful.
9. Connecting with fighters from around the world. Every place has their own little ways of doing things. The boys from Crete like to follow through everything, and the Aussie has a different teep kick. The amount of new subtle techniques one can learn here is amazing.
10. Last but not least, all the great friends I've made here. I will especially miss ChaiPoom, the various trainers, and the brothers Boyd and Bird.

I will not be missing:
1. The pollution. I spent most of my time around Bangkok and I'll be glad not to breathe air like this for a while.
2. The communication gap. Although everyone pretty much understands each other now, new Thai people thrown into the mix make for those awfully awkward moments of "what tone was that?".
3. Farang tax. Even with the Thai people charging me extra as I am foreign, stuff is dirt cheap. But that's not the point, I know I'm being ripped off because of my skin color. Screw that I'd rather pay the expensive American price and not give you any of my money. Hence my lack of buying too much stuff here.
4. The Music. Everything here is pop music. Western pop is imported, along with J-Pop and K-Pop. All the hip-hop and metal are the popular variants. I hate pop music back home and I hate it here. Unfortunately here there seems to be no real underground scene. Just bands claiming to be different and sounding just like Bodyslam and other Thai Pop acts. It will be nice to go back home and get a real Death Metal show under my belt again.
5. Weird fish in the food. I hate ordering incorrectly as some of the seafood here is quite strange. No more, thanks.
6. Getting sick. I'm not used to the variants found here and my body is already taxed from training. Needless to say I will not miss the occasional undercooked food either.
7. Poor water piping. I can't count how many times our shower has randomly shot rust for a few seconds and then gone back to normal.
8. Lack of dryers. My clothes feel only half clean when air dried.
9. The weight machines being broken. I can't gain weight if I can't lift, and these machines snap their rusty cables after about 50 kilo. Thus I'm looking forward to finally putting some meat back on my bones after all this endurance training and sickness taking my weight down quite a ways.
10. Mosquitoes. I hate these things now. I rarely got bit compared to Danielle but they still made things hell for the both of us. Mosquito genocide sounds like a great idea, screw the fragile ecosystem.

Danielle is also doing this on her blog. Some things may overlap as we are writing at the same time and not cribbing off of each other.

Ayutthaya

Sunday we went to Ayutthaya, it's a stones throw away from Bangkok (Actually the city surrounding Aytthaya has merged with BKK and Bang Pa In). We stopped at a place called Bang Pa In first and saw some royal city-type-memorial, weird-cool-stuff that I don't really know what I was looking at. But it was cool, and there was something about a queen who drowned because it was illegal to touch royalty back in the day and no one helped her. Here are some pictures we took at Bang Pa In.


A royal temple in the middle of the lake.


This was a dog hanging around a deck that people used to feed fish and turtles in the lake. There was a vendor selling bread for the fish, I later saw this dog march off with two pieces of bread in it's mouth. Later when we came back it was sitting right back where it was to begin with. It wasn't eating the bread it had in it's mouth which makes me wonder where it went.


Danielle, Me, and ChaiPoom at the sculpted bushes in the garden.


The observatory where the King of Thailand discovered a new star. It has a great view but in order to keep this blog short I'll just leave those photos on my Flickr account.

After that we stopped at some temple along the way and got a free vegetarian meal. I guess it's vegetarian week or something. Kind of like Buddhist Lent, no meat, no sex, no alcohol, etc.

The food was good, then we ate Lotus seeds in the ChaiPoom's truck, and we finally got to our main destination of Ayutthaya. For some reason I love old ruins and ancient cityscape. This was the old capitol city of Siam until the Burmese came in and torched and destroyed everything. I guess a lot of the rumors of gold buried beneath the temples proved to be true as the Burmese seemed intent on looting what they could. A few restorations have come and gone but otherwise the old city remains in it's destroyed state, however still living as some of these photos will show.


Welcome to Ayutthaya.


These trees are awesome, this one seemed to guard a Buddhas head. Not surprising this is one of the few heads we actually saw. Many heads from Ayutthaya have been stolen, and the originals of some have been repaired or replaced.


An example of the torched Buddhas. Notice how the neck of the large complete Buddha is not scorched as it is new concrete holding the head in place.


I really liked this wall for some reason.


Rows of Buddhas.


An example of most of the walls around here.


Gravestones?


As you can see some parts are still in use. This is in the middle chedi.


The outside of the chedi.


Courtyard view from the main stage of the chedi.


An odd kitten hanging around this place alone.


At first I turned my head thinking someone had dropped their cellphone nearby. I kept looking and all of the sudden this bird moves and makes the noise again! This thing has some strange calls, and more than one. ChaiPoom told us that if you keep one as a pet you can teach it to talk like a parrot.

Ayutthaya has to be one of my favorite places that we have visited so far. I could spend days wandering around and looking at all the little intricacies of the place. But it was overcast and about to rain so we headed back home. On the way back all of us fell asleep except for ChaiPoom who was driving.

More photos from this trip and all of Thailand are here.

The Duplicity of the Thai Visa

When I obtained my Thai Visa from the consulate in Denver I was told that it was a 90 day Visa that I could extend for another 30 days. "No problem" I thought. I planned my vacation accordingly and I had tickets leaving the country a day or two in advance of 120 days.

However, this is not the case when you arrive in the country. The first Visa I got was for 90 days rounded down to the end of the nearest month. Making it effectively 87 days. The extension I just got was similar and I was overdue so it became 29 days (See Cambodian posts below). This shorts me 4 days total and I'm adjusting my flight back home, which is another pain in the ass that I will explain later. Phone lines around here are duplicitous as well.

Has any traveler or expat had the same thing happen to them? Is this to be expected? This is my first time outside of my home country, but to be honest I get the impression that the Thais on one end or the other don't know their own system. Like I said it's my first time traveling away from home so maybe it's just that I'm new to the whole thing.

Thai Food Terrorists!

THIS is absolutely hilarious.

And I've had that paste on Koh Chang it beats the hell out of the Jungle Curry. The link gives a short recipe but I hear that one should ferment the peppers in the oil for a few weeks before cooking it to get the real deal.

Back in the BKK

We woke up at 3:30am this morning, got ready, and took a taxi to the bus station. We arrived at the station at 4:45 and the bus showed up as we were arriving. This was to be an indicator of our entire trip.

The bus ride to the Cambodian border was actually pretty nice. I don't know what most people complain about, and it's only four hours each way. We scored an air conditioned bus for 200 baht round trip. Apparently many Thais make this trip to gamble in the border city of Poi Pet. So this bus route is pretty well known.

Our guide, Instructor Boyd, may or may not have talked his way into getting us some perks, but he did hook us up with a Thai buisness woman who was transferring some goods from Bangkok to the Thai side of the border. We were offered free meal tickets to a casino in Cambodian territory which we took full advantage of later on.

Upon arriving I noticed that this city was pretty run down. We took a side trip before crossing the border to the many side stalls that were jam packed with all kinds of clothing. A lot of this was being transported on rickshaws that were overloaded and looked like some demented animal. I'm used to people staring at me in Bangkok, and I don't even notice it anymore. However, here they STARE at foreigners, I even heard "AYE FALAHNG!" shouted in surprise as I walked by one stall. I guess we aren't that common in those areas, most foreigners I saw here were staying near the border entry and then high-tailing it to their next destination.

The stalls were the usual depot of stolen goods, knock offs, or sweat shop defects. I find these knock offs to be quite entertaining. Especially when you run into names like adadas, adides, pama, pema, and so on. I almost bought a pair of "Adides" sandals that had the Puma logo on the sole of the shoe, just for the irony.

Hanging out by these shops was actually getting annoying, so we crossed the border. We had to pay a small fine for one days worth of overstaying our visa. The person doing all of our paperwork seemed to be getting a little sideline advice from our instructor but I have no idea what was being said.

After crossing the border we were immediately bombarded by children barely dressed saying "lo" over and over, and holding out their hands. I ignored most of them as they are usually forced into this work by their parents, but I gave one my empty water bottle because I didn't want to carry it anymore and he seemed oddly pleased with that. These kids are good with this game though, most of them aren't skinny or injured, and they seem happy and playful until they see a mark (aka a foreigner).

However that was only the children beggars, there was a few adult ones with missing limbs, torched faces, blind, and hobbling along the streets leaning on the rickshaws to stay up. They did not seem happy, or too enthusiastic about begging.

From here we caught a taxi to the casino that we had meal coupons for. This town is a gambling town, It's like a ghetto(er) Vegas. Apparently many Thais own casinos here just across the border. It was nothing but casino after casino.

Upon entering we had our bags and person scanned and went straight for the food. After that we had a few hours to kill until our bus left so we wandered around the casino. Everything was computerized and casino computers are the last thing I trust so we didn't gamble. Boyd layed down 100 baht at a Baccarat machine and he kept it going for an hour until handing the reins to me. We pretty much killed out time with this machine to the amazement of some Thais around us. Not to mention a smoking hot, obviously rich, Thai woman who was alone. I think this is the first Thai woman I have found attractive enough to comment on.

At about 3pm we took a taxi to the border. By now my stress was pretty much lifted as we had gotten across so getting back would be easy. The taxi driver wanted 1000 baht for the short trip but Boyd told us to get out so we stiffed the scamming bastard and left. We waited in a short line to get re-entry stamps, and when we got there another chat with the police and Boyd ensued. He ended up leaving his passport with the officers and took us out of the building and back a ways.

We forgot to get the Cambodian Visa for re-entry. This sucked. This sucked hardcore. Our bus was due to leave in an hour and we had to wait to get our Visa. At the office we slipped the guy a few undisclosed baht to hurry the process up. At 3:30 we had our Visas and we went back to the main office.

This time the lines were packed, especially with foreign backpackers who were holding up the lines with their problems. Most of them stank like hell too, I'm sure I'm no rose-smelling bastard in the Cambodian heat but some of these guys were wretched.

Another talk ensued with the police and as soon as the words "Muay Thai" were dropped from Boyd everyone was smiles and the stamps were flying. We got out of the office at 3:45 and booked it in our fastest "Thai-style (slow)" walk.

The bus ride back was much the same as before and we arrived back at our home at about 8pm. I wrote this, and I'm very tired. We have another 29 days in the Kingdom.

It's a Holiday in Cambodia! (not really)

We went to the Immigration Office in Bangkok today to renew our Visas for the last month. As it turns out the Denver consulate gave us the wrong Visas. We can get a seven day extension at the office, and that's about it. This is of no help to us as our trip back to the U.S. is a month away, and our Visas expire today.

We have another option however.

So, pretty soon, Danielle and I are getting on a bus and riding four hours to the Cambodia border. We will cross the border, and then return back later on. This will give us another month on a tourist Visa.

This is called a Visa run, and honestly it is a bit shady. I read up on this before visiting Thailand and the government has been passing laws restricting and unrestricting this activity so many times that it's really a big mess. However most foreigners seem to have no problem with this, and a few boxers at the institute have done it before as well.

Wish us luck, I'll post when I'm back in Bangkok.

Laughing at the Trendy People

My handy little Internet news ticker told me recently that Apple through a firmware update just bricked all the modded iPhones and deleted third party software on others. Many, many people are not happy about this.

Their response to complaints "go buy a new one, YOU broke the terms and conditions of the product".

And the thing is, Apple is completely correct.

So for all of those people who blew $400-$600 USD on an iPhone only to have it bricked I have only one thing to say... SUCKERS!

What the hell is wrong with you people? First of all the whole iPod thing is a joke. It's an mp3 player with some fancy bells and whistles. But no all the Mac die-hards claim it to be soooo different. Not only that but it's locked in to the Apple iTune standard and other Apple only shenanigans. Sure you can use it with Windows OS but that was a marketing decision made to reach a larger sales demographic.

So it's no surprise that the iPhone is exactly the same. Like everything else bearing the prefix of "i" this oh-so-new gadget is just a reinvention of what's been out there (smart phones) with some added bells and whistles. Same stuff different package, BUT also locked in to Apple's way of doing things. Again this has been the double edged sword of Apple since the beginning. They close off their systems at the expense of losing customers, but in return they have more reliable systems. Somehow the company managed to market the i prefix gadgets into a trendy fad.

And that is where all these suckers come in. Many of Apple's customers already had smart phones, mp3 players, and a subscription to download music. Somehow, just somehow, they all got conned into this "new" trend surfacing from good ol' Apple. Now everyone lives in iWorld.

I may get a lot of flack from die-hard Mac users but honestly this is where all of their products come into play. Most of the Mac buzz is from an anti-Windows stance, which is somewhat understandable (I still use XP though). However, just like in American politics, people can't seem to count past two and realize that they have more options when they are dissatisfied, if only they would stop worrying about what "other people" are going to do.

/Rant... Suckers

Thai Politics

I try not to get involved but everyone keeps talking about this stuff.

What makes it worse is that I'm clueless. I don't know what to think. I don't know why there was a coup exactly. I don't know the history of Thailand enough to "get" the way things are done here. To put it simply my answer to every political question regarding Thailand is "I dunno".

Why do people want my opinion anyways? I am not Thai, and therefore I can't vote. Like some farang who just wants to fight is a good source on anything. Nobody asks for my credentials, and if they did a B.S. in Psychology and a general interest in obscure crazy topics is nothing to brag about.

I hear buzzwords like corruption, democracy, and so on to the point they lose their meaning and just become fading emotional tones. Drifting off slowly until they mean exactly what their being used for, nothing. Leaving me only with the taste of cynicism and apathy in their departure.

Mud is thrown in every direction, every political party is supported by the King (or is it vice versa?), and to top everything off, the same ideas trade sides as if they were baseball cards.

You know, this wouldn't bug me if it wasn't so similar to... American politics.

In a way I'm kind of glad that I don't yet understand enough of the Thai language to hear the political speak in it's native tongue. I can just follow the lead of the Thais around me and I'm just fine. I may have stood and clapped for completely opposing sides depending on where I was but I didn't, and still don't, know who is who.

Cool Blog

I found a cool blog about the street dogs in Bangkok.

Rangsit (a part of Bangkok???) has it's collection of dogs, and I may take a picture of one who comes by the Muay Thai Institute around 5-6pm everyday.

There are also many stray cats, including one that has made the stadium it's hunting grounds every other day. The cats aren't as friendly or as mean as the dogs can get. Rather they like to be left alone. Maybe some pictures of them are due as well.

What do you guys think; yes, no, or STFU and go train?

We are Okay.

A huge quake hit Indonesia and has been producing aftershocks for a while. Tsunami warnings were given to neighboring countries and anyone in the Indian Sea. However Thailand specifically has yet to be given one.

You may remember a few years ago that a tsunami rocked Thailand pretty hard, so people are obviously concerned.

We are far enough inland not to feel the hard hit of a tsunami but we are also surrounded by rivers and canals. We may get flood water if one hits but I can't imagine more than that.

But so far we are doing fine and Thailand is the same as it has been for weeks.

EDIT 09-16-07: We were also not on that airplane that crashed in Phuket which has been all over the news here. I dunno about elsewhere but it had a lot of foriegners on it so it might get some news.

Reflections on 9/11

I am very glad that today I am not in America.

Not because there are silly videos of bin Laden, not because of some copycat threat, and not because of fear. I am glad to be missing out on the constant bickering and political discussion that always comes with this day. Whether it be the latest ultra-left conspiracy theory or the neo-con nutbag using today as an excuse for racism. I'm sick of the lives of those lost being used to further personal and political agendas, not only by politicians but by the pundits among the masses on either side. It doesn't matter if you make movies or just engage in coffee shop drama. For the sake of those who died today, please STFU.

It's sick it really is.

If you wish to talk about lives lost, how about Hurricane Katrina, which would have been much less fatal if FEMA was operating correctly. But no... that was a natural disaster, and 9/11 was an attack. Either way the most damage was done by human error in one way or another so I don't think that it's too far off for comparison. But who in the world remembers the anniversary of Katrina? I know a friend of mine who lost her home to it does, do you?

But here in Thailand it's just another day. I'm sore from training, I'm really hungry from training, and everyone is going on with their lives. Including those in the far south of Thailand where cars still blow up thanks to the same kind of extremists that attacked America years ago.

Lesson learned from the Thai people; you have to move on like those in Katrina have, and it's going to be impossible in America while people still use 9/11 as an excuse to get on their little soapbox and depress the crap out of everyone.

/END RANT

Halfway through.

So we are halfway through our trip to Thailand and I figure that's a good time to recap things.

I am just behind where I wanted to be in terms of my training. A few injuries and some unkind food set me back a bit so I still think that I'm doing well overall. The only things that I want to accomplish is a bit more time in the weight room, maybe put in a few 6 hour days, and securing my weight back up at 160 pounds.

Danielle started training and I think it's great for her. There were women Muay Thai fighters at the show we went to yesterday but unfortunately we had to leave early and not see them*. She also seems to be more interested in fighting in general and we have been looking at female fight vids both MMA and Muay Thai since YouTube is no longer banned in Thailand. She says that watching women fight gets her more interested in training as well**. Good stuff, although I fear that she will not be as comfy, soft, and squishy to lay next to if she keeps it up.

*This brings up another point. Even in America women usually fight at the very beginning or the very end of a show. I understand that Thai superstition says that a ring where women fight is cursed or something so maybe having them fight last here is due to that. But it seems odd to me to have this marker separating them from other fighters on the bill. I know most male MMA fans love to see women fight, for various reasons. So the draw is there, why not?

**Props to any organization that has women fighters alongside men. The fights are just as interesting, and the women themselves are athletes who have poured just as much sweat, blood, and who knows what else into their training.

We are adjusting well to our surroundings the only barrier here is still language. There are about 10 words that all sound like "kao" to me so the tones and length of vowels are really being a large barrier to understand common speech. However what words we do know, we use without hesitation anymore and we seem to be picking up odds and ends of the language here and there.

I am used to cold showers, dirty streets, and the general opinion that we live and train in one of the many assholes of Bangkok.

I keep looking back to America every now and then, to be honest there are many pro's and con's about comparing Thailand to America. This is expected as with any other country. But I really look forward to only a few things back home. Friends and family are what I miss the most, I miss training with The Kai and feel silly now for not pushing myself there as I am here, and everything else is just small stuff. For the record I do not miss work, but I miss some of the people there.

In all I am having fun here, but I miss you guys. I look forward to being back in November, and I'll probably not shut up about Thailand until I find a way to get back here.

Ong Bak 2?

So yesterday while I was training this Thai woman came into our stadium and started taking pictures of everyone. Front, center, side, and finally in a guard stance.

I'm thinking "what the hell?" but hey this is Thailand, so I let her take a shot at me, it was kind of awkward but she spoke enough English so that I didn't look like a complete fool.

Later on I find out that this woman was scouting for Ong Bak 2!

If you haven't seen Ong Bak, go rent it now. It's a great Thai movie, and if you like any Jackie Chan style stunt work then you'll love it. Also check out Tony Jaa's last movie "Tom Yun Goon" or "The Protector (USA release name)", get the international version if you can as the American cut takes out over 20 minuets and a whole lot of Thai customs.

Granted I probably have a snowballs chance in hell of getting called, even for Badguy #37 or something. I imagine that they want some beefcake guy like this one guy from Egypt whose pectorals probably weigh more than half of me. But the feeling around all the other students and myself is "what if?".

It'd be cool as hell to be a part of this especially since it's Tony Jaa's first shot at directing as well. I'd love to have a reason to extend my stay in Thailand, pending of course an event in November that I will be home for. Not to mention I would not only meet but act with one of the people who got me so interested in Muay Thai to begin with.

Bah, enough of this, I have training to do.

Weight Drop.

When I left the states I weighed a good 155-160 pounds (~70kg) on any given day. Much of this was made from the past year or so of building myself up from around 140 (~63kg), which is the weight I somehow stayed at all through high school and college.

I don't want to fight lightweight and so I tried to gain weight. Much of the same time my friends were doing this as well, Jeff for instance has had some great success at this back home in Colorado. We hit plateaus and moved on and kept sharing tips for healthy weight gain with each other.

Anyways, after the first month of training here I dropped down to a solid 150 (70kg), and I mean SOLID. I was happy with this as the excess fat that I had put on from plowing through some of my weight gain back in America had vanished. I was now able to use the smallest hole in my belt like I was before I started trying to gain weight, but I looked like a beast. Simply put I was merely cutting fat, seven pounds of it which had me thinking "woah!" I didn't know that I had that much to get rid of.

This past Sunday I got some wicked food poisoning. I'm not exactly sure what from because I've been eating like a monster, however a big red pig statue comes to mind. The food here in Thailand is great and training four hours a day gets you hungry. I basically order two dishes worth every time I go out, plus the Thai's serve small portions. So needless to say I ate quite a bit from quite a few places.

After about 3 days of worshipping the porcelain god and other unpleasantries I decided to get back to training today. My stomach felt weird but not queasy or hurting, and I’ve been able to hold small amounts of food down for about the past day. So I figured that I was good to go.

Before training I hopped on the scale in the weight room. 143 pounds (~65kg).

Son of a bitch!

That’s about 14 pounds (~6.5kg) since I arrived in Thailand that are gone. I do look worse for wear though, and I knew during training that I must’ve lost some muscle during my sickness as training was making me ache and I was going light today. Danielle said that I look as scrawny as I did back when I was 18. So I figured that I dropped a few but I didn’t think that I was down THAT much.

So here goes another attempt at getting up to a good, healthy, 160 (72kg). I just hope that this doesn’t take as long as it did last time.

Koh Chang

So we were offered a chance to go train at a resort on Koh Chang, and island just south of the Bangkok area. We said sure and the next day everyone told us that we were leaving at six in the morning. Woah hows that for getting things going!

It's an amazing island and we were treated like VIPs and only had to pay about 1/4 of the price. We ate with the owner of the resort for our meals and didn't have to spend another baht after we got there. We found out that the catch was being interviewed by a television station for promotion of the resort. Not bad really.

Here are a few pics of the island.

View from the Dock.


Coconut Tree, do not sleep under these, as a falling coconut will open your head.


Across the beach to the small Elephant island.


Somewhat better view of the Elephant island.


Master Boyd being silly with a flower.


Finally a picture of my training for you guys. The guy with hair is Francisco and he is from Spain.


Master Noi.


Ah yes the staris, pretty to look at, hell to run up and down.

The top ten things that no one tells you about Thailand.

Well after a month of living in Thailand, or Bangkok really, here’s a list of things that I wish I had known about before coming here so I could have prepared for my trip better.

1. Thai people do not believe in hot water. You will probably find hot and cold taps in a high star hotel geared towards foreigners and tourists, and that’s it. If you are going to live in a dorm style place or cheaper housing, then get used to cold showers in a bathroom that has no barrier from toilet to shower to sink.

2. Many people speak English, just about as much as you do Thai. So study some Thai real well. Most locals know a few words or phrases and the people in the service sector are a bit better, but not by much. So what it comes down to is that Thai is the language that you need to communicate. Start with numbers as Thai numbers are easy to learn. Also body language is a great skill, and a smile and a nod will get you pretty far. Do not point or wave with your hand up. Just keep your palm down and motion for help if you want something.

3. Tell the taxi drivers to use their meter. Just say “bert meter” and if they refuse get out. Otherwise you might get charged hell knows what for the trip. This only happened to us once and the guy charged us what we usually need to pay plus our usual tip so it wasn’t that bad. But still, meter is good.

4. Speaking of taxis, be careful which taxi you flag down and enter. If the car sounds like it is about to fall apart, then it probably is. For their credit most drivers keep their cars pretty well tuned, but the lower end drivers might break down and you could be stuck flagging another taxi halfway to your destination on a busy highway. This actually happened to us tonight.

5. Another thing about taxis. Carry a card of the place that you are staying at that has the address in Thai. If all else fails in asking where to go pull out the business card and show it to the driver. It is also helpful to remember any hotspots close to your destination such as nightclubs, shopping centers, and the like, and you can just tell them to take you there and walk the rest of the way.

6. Sometimes there are two prices. If you learn to read Thai numerals this will be apparent to you as one price is in Thai numerals and is different than the price in Arabic (regular) numerals. Most modernized places don’t have this but many tourist destinations do. So don’t be surprised. Also when bargaining you can’t go down to what you just saw a Thai person buy something for, usually you have to pay much more. Other people and I call this the farang tax.

7. A smile is always a smile in the west but here it can mean different things. I still haven’t figured this entire one out but it definitely comes in awkward moments where we would not smile sometimes. Still you should smile more often in Thailand as Thai people seem to like it. Body language people, use it, it’s a tourist’s best friend.

8. There are no dryers. I’ve seen washing machines on sale but never a dryer. You are going to hang your clothes out to dry. So buy a lint roller and what not as the lint that a dryer usually catches will still be there when you air dry something. Sports tape works pretty well and I used half a roll on my split knuckles and the other half on my clothes. I suggest a lint roller though.

9. Everything that you do will be noticed by Thai people. As a foreigner you stick out like a sore thumb, and you will be noticed even more. The way you smell, dress, walk, look around, and act. It may seem shallow to a western point of view but over here class distinctions rule the day. So dress nice, smell nice, act nice, and whatever you do if something is wrong keep your cool. As I said body language goes pretty far, so use it to your advantage, not disadvantage, and keep your self awareness high.

10. Respect H.M. the King. The Thai people love him, they stand up in movie theaters for the national anthem, and so should you. Basically follow the lead of the Thai people around you on how to act and what to do for etiquette about the King. The King is also on every single piece of money that is floating around right now. So if your drop some coins, then you should pick them up and dust them off as if they were important to you, even if it is less than 1 baht.

Rain

The first time that I saw it rain here I thought to myself "if it rained like this back home there would be flood warnings", well yesterday back in Fort Collins I hear that there were flood warnings.

Here are some stats on how much it rains in Thailand:

Overall the southern parts of Thailand get by far the most rain with around 2,400 millimetres (~94 inches) every year, compared with the central and northern regions of Thailand, both of which get around 1,400 millimetres (~55 inches).
Source: Travelfish

Here's what caused flood warnings back home:

DayWeather Inc. of Cheyenne, using a city of Fort Collins automated rain gauge network installed after the 1997 Spring Creek flood, reported 4.92 inches (124 mm) on Taft Hill Road near Harmony that fell in 90 minutes to two hours.

The storm dumped more than 3 inches (76 mm) of rain on west Harmony Road in 45 minutes, according to the weather service.

The source is a News repost from a friend's LJ and I'll keep her URL private.

It rains just less than every other day right now and I hear that it's only the begining of the rainy season. The other day it was raining and the drops came down huge, more like puddles falling from the sky. It was very surreal to watch this happen outside my window.

Now I'm not saying that the flood warnings weren't justified. What was dumped in the span of an hour back home is a lot even for Thailand. Also the terrain back home is not like the terrain here, and with what happened in 97 I'm sure everyone is scared of a flood even an entire decade later. It's just interesting to note how large the difference is concerning what is normal and abnormal weather.

If it rained that much that quickly here, people would think that it was September or October, and wonder what happened to August.

More Cowbell!

So um we kinda figured out what was making Danielle sick. And the only cure for it is more cowbell!



Really though it's not that funny. Sort of. Head over to her blog to check it out.

Confusing Censorship

As many of you back home know, YouTube is banned in Thailand due to someone posting a video saying bad things about the King. Recently however I have seen many people on the net claiming that YouTube is no longer blocked in Thailand.

Well crap I still can't see YouTube so what gives?

I did a little more research into the matter and found a few interesting things out.

1. The Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) gives out a list to the different ISP's here on what sites to block. It is up to each ISP to enforce this list. So this explains why someone may be able to view a website from their office but not from their house. Or why one person can view a website while I can't. Simply put, one ISP hasn't blocked the website... yet.

I've heard that the main routers leading out of the country have since been given a block list but that does not seem to be true if the above phenomenon still happens.

2. MICT people barely use e-mail themselves. This is a group that hardly even uses the medium that it enforces. So in their efforts to censor they do not realize that they can ban a single page or video. Instead they ban entire domains regardless of what else might be banned. Thus effectively banning more websites than they even know. They claim to have banned about 200, but independent groups estimate blocked websites in the thousands. Hence my earlier post of wondering if blogger would work since a Thai blog drew the ire of MICT.

3. The interim military government doesn't seem to know how bad this makes Thailand look to the rest of the world. If they knew that they were being put in the same league as oppressive dictatorships (Link, scroll down to the graphs), I think that things would change. However, as stated before they don't use the internet that much.

4. Add everything up and you get a mess of attempted censorship. Nothing works right, they ban more than they know, and depending on who you get internet service from some stuff might not even be banned. (Ie: I can get Newgrounds but not YouTube, and Newgrounds is also on the ban list at number 17637.)

5. Note: Porn is banned in Thailand outright, and has been for some time. Hence many websites on the ban list are pornographic in nature. I'd say 90% seems about correct. However if you want to see some skin there are plenty of go-go bars in the tourist areas. This ironic topic I'll save for later. Confusing to a westerner but not for the Thai.

So all in all Thailand itself is still a really good place to be right now, it just looks kind of bad from the outside. I can personally say, as a foriegner who is a "tourist", that I'm still having fun and enjoying my time here. The censorship barely effects me, and to be honest I don't notice it until I get on the net. If I lived here and had to deal with the politics, then my view might change. But no, I'll be back in November to deal with all the silly American politics back home, and our own confusing "censorship". Don't be so harsh on the Thai censorship, as I know firsthand that America has it's own faults in the media.

Sunday #3, first day of rest.

This Sunday Danielle and I are taking it easy. Partially because our local guide is having elections today and partially because I have bruised something deep in my left foot. I am thinking about taking an extra day off tomorrow to let it heal.

The language lessons are going very well, I know introductions, a few basic questions, numbers up 999, plus dates and time. The Thai week is still rooted in their religion as each day carries the name of a certain God who rules a planet for that day. It is interesting to note that the western calendar also does this but not many people know of it. This is because in the west the days are named after pagan gods such as Freya for Friday and so on, and not many people know the old pantheon due to Christianity imposing itself so completely. The days also have colors and your lucky color is the one of the day that you were born on. I share mine with the Thai King of being born on a Monday so my color is yellow. Danielle's is green for Wednesday.

I found a more in-depth blog on the matter for those interested in such things.

Thai Colors of the Days, This post also has a link where you can calculate the day that you were born on.
Thai Gods of the Days

Another thing that I should remind everyone of is that although the country is 98% Bhuddist the Thai people hold on to their Animistic beliefs just as much. Many of these beliefs are Hindu in origin. So it is not uncommon to see worship and revrence of various Gods just as much as Bhudda.

This makes me wonder about the west, and how much culture and heritage we may have lost due to the complete overhaul that Christianity brought with it. Granted our calendar days and other traces give us a clue to this past, but how many people are even aware of these things that are right in front of us? What customs, superstitions, and beliefs have completely vanished from our culture? Although there are modern movements to restore what we can from our old ways; I find that most of these movements fill in the gaps with Christian and politically correct morality instead of trying to attempt an educated guess, or a truer synthesis in some other way. Personally I'd be happier if they would just leave it alone and say "that information has been lost" and work with holes in the system to be figured out later if possible.

Or we could take the Thai way and just pretend the two don't contradict each other. That doesn't suit me though...

FoCo Steak PWND!

I just ate at a steakhouse within walking distance from the Muay Thai camp called ChokChoi.

Best steak of my life. The End.

Spread the word around Colorado that some Thailand steakhouse just PWND the shit out of all of them. I'm dead serious about this too.

On another note, we've been noticing that the Thai's seem to cook Western cuisine better than Americans in general. Maybe it has some cultural thing of quality and pride rather than just turning a profit.

Sunday #2 and other such things.

Sorry for not posting earlier but Thailand has been really exhausting. For our second sunday trip we went to see the National Museum. The entire place is off limits to cameras so there were no pictures of this one unfortunately. There is a ton of information among the several buildings that house various exhibits. One of the most interesting to me was the weapons room and the history of Thailand through the several dynasties up to the current one. They had a seperate room for each King in the current Chakri dynasty (9 so far) and what some of them did was really impressive. The Thai Kings all seem to work just as much as the common people do, and often fund projects for the benefit of the country.

Danielle has started cooking with the local shop owner's wife. She is mainly doing prep work and such but she learns one new dish every day.

The Muay Thai training is going well I am supposed to test sometime in next few days on the basics, my only concern is the relatively confusing and long Wai Kru Ram Muay.

Caution.

Anything that has "jungle curry" in it is hotter than shit.

Keep in mind that this is coming from a guy who loves to cook with habaneros.

I could only eat about one third of the bowl.

Our First Sunday Trip

Hello Again!
Yesterday Danielle and I took a trip to some of the temples and palaces in central Bangkok. This stuff is really impressive, and although we felt touristy we took a lot of pictures. A local guy who runs a eatery/cafe/food-stall three blocks from the Muay Thai Institute was our guide. His name is ChaiPoom, and he rocks.

So without further ado here are the pretty pictures.

Wat Arun, Temple of the Dawn. This is the King's temple and where his ashes will be stored. A very impressive temple, it's called Temple of the Dawn because when the sun rises it sparkles off of all the china, gold, and jewels.

We took a ferry across the Chao Phraya river this is the view of Wat Arun from there.


Up the first flight of stairs.


The stairs up to the top after climbing the first set. The signs say "don't even think about it".


The Demons gaurding Wat Arun, here you can see the inlaid jewels and china.


A figure in the wall, there are different ones everywhere.

There are a lot of other cool things and places around this temple but there is also a no camera rule in those areas, so we don't have pictures of them.

Up next is the Reclining Bhudda of Wat Pho. This thing is HUGE, I don't think that the pictures convey that really well. It's just really big and impressive. I think the Bhudda itself is about 150 feet long.

The Head.


Danielle for size comparison.


The Feet.


Up Close of the Feet. Here you can see the mother of pearl decorations.


The Grand Palace and Emerald Bhudda were next. The Grand Palace has this huge Golden Chedi that's really cool. Also this place has an extremely strict zone of camera use, so we can show you only the outside of these places. If you ever get a chance to see the Emerald Bhudda here, do so.

The Golden Chedi


The two of us in front of the Golden Chedi.


These were explained to me to be Protectors, like bodygaurds, as all demons in holy places are here. There is a huge red one in the airport as well. They are called Khon.


The outside of the royal library.


More Khons.


Our guide ChaiPoom and us outside the royal pantheon.


After all that we decided to head back to the camp. It was blazing hot. Our sunscreen was wearing out (we are both burnt a bit), and our legs were tired. All this stuff and more is in central Bangkok. It would take a few weeks of constant tourist action to see everything in the area.

Special thanks to ChaiPoom for being our guide.


Until next time.


P.S. be sure to keep checking Danielle's blog as well as mine, there is just too much for us to write about at one time. After all of this ChaiPoom invited us to his place for a traditional Thai dinner which was awesome.

What I'm In For.

Hey everyone, sorry for the lack of posts but the training and jet lag combined has been leaving me a bit tired. So far Danielle has posted a bit more and has uploaded some pictures of our room, spiders, and this strange hairy Thai fruit that is really sweet. Check out her page here.

So far the training has been pretty much as I thought. They are concentrating on stance, movement, punches, and kicks for the beginners. Not to mention how to wrap your hands the Thai way and also the Wai Kru; their pre-fight ritual dance.

We warm up each time by running around the stadium. Bare feet on concrete makes for some interesting blisters but they are turning into callouses pretty fast so that's no big deal. After that some warm up and stretching and then running through the basic footwork. The second hour is where they divide up the class per skill level and teach us what we need to know using drills, sandbags (yes they are filled with sand, yes they hurt), and usually having either 10oz. gloves on our hands for the bags, or 1pound weights in our hands for the free-form exercises.

I do that from 7-9am and then again from 3-5pm Bangkok time, everyday except Sunday. This leaves me drenched in sweat by the time I am done (Actually 1/2 an hour through). It's a great workout and although I never run out of breath (thank you elevation difference), the heat and humidity here makes for some sore muscles.

That's all for now, I'll talk to you all again soon.

Finally here.

So the 20+ hour flight was not nearly as bad as I had thought it would've been. The only problem we had was finding our contact at the airport here in Bangkok among the masses of people. Not to mention every taxi driver offering their own help and delaying us as well.

Sleeping was a bit off. But that is to be expected. Today I am going to grab a few things from the local markets and set up my training with the Muay Thai Institute. Expect pictures sometime else. Danielle already took some of the first spider she saw in Thailand, it is a simple house spider in our bathroom.

One thing that I noticed is that the flight attendants for Japan Air were a whole lot more professional than American Airlines, or even what I've seen from United and other American flights that I've taken. Honestly I don't think that I would even comment on this if it wasn't so impressive.

That's all for now, I am going to set things up here.

Muay Thai Vids

This should give you guys an idea of what I'm going over there for.

Highlight Reel. It starts with a nice elbow KO from a clinch. Then it finishes with a spinning elbow KO, which gives the winner extra money as it is a hard hit to pull off.



Rambaa M16 is known for his dancing.



Ramon Dekkers the first Farang fighter to earn Fighter of the year in Thailand.



A full fight. Ramon Dekkers vs. Sakmongkol, Both legends in their own right. This is to show how highlight reels only show the the good stuff. And also usually different music than the traditional stuff.

Interesting events.

Blogger (the service that you are viewing.) May be banned in Thailand after they found a blog critical of the temporary military government.

Hopefully these issues do not persist after the general elections.

And also hopefully I can still post here to talk with you guys while I'm over there.

Itinerary

Denver Intl., United States to Bangkok, Thailand

American Airlines
Flight: 1469 Denver Intl. Los Angeles Intl. Mon, Jul 02, 2007
10:25 AM Mon, Jul 02, 2007
11:55 AM
American Airlines
Flight: 169 Los Angeles Intl. Tokyo Narita Mon, Jul 02, 2007
12:40 PM Tue, Jul 03, 2007
04:00 PM
American Airlines
Flight: 5834 Tokyo Narita Bangkok Tue, Jul 03, 2007
06:50 PM Tue, Jul 03, 2007
11:25 PM

Bangkok, Thailand to Denver Intl., United States

American Airlines
Flight: 5835 Bangkok Tokyo Narita Mon, Nov 05, 2007
08:15 AM Mon, Nov 05, 2007
04:00 PM
American Airlines
Flight: 60 Tokyo Narita Dallas / Fort Worth Intl Mon, Nov 05, 2007
07:00 PM Mon, Nov 05, 2007
03:35 PM
American Airlines
Flight: 1483 Dallas / Fort Worth Intl Denver Intl. Mon, Nov 05, 2007
05:20 PM Mon, Nov 05, 2007
06:25 PM

Setting Things Up

Today I'm setting this blog up. The main reason that I am blogging here and not elsewhere is for my friends who dislike stuff like MySpace or LiveJournal. Plus this service is not controversial so it is probably not banned in Thailand as some other websites might be.

That being said I will probably edit the style and such in the coming month or two before I finally take off. Most posts to this blog will not be anything more than simple updates until I get to Thailand. Stuff like when I go exactly and for how long (2-4 months right now).

Until then keep in touch IRL, it's just much better that way.

P.S. Here's an ad for Thai Whiskey that's pretty funny. I may not be able to see it when I go, since Thailand is probably still banning YouTube for offensive videos about their king.