An average Thai Friday night

In my last post I mentioned that the next thing I was planning on doing was going to see a traditional Muay Thai fight at the local stadium on Friday night. I had promised people that I would try and keep this blog updated every day, however the activities of Friday night managed to knock me off that balance just a little, mainly due to the international tag team of Australia and Brazil.

The best way to describe this partnership would be to say that Jake (Australia) is like a kid with a box of matches. He doesn’t really know 100% what he is doing but he loves to keep sparking those matches wherever he is. This translates to “come on guys, one beer wont hurt” in his ever convincing Australian way. This is where Nelson (Brazil) come in like a big can of petrol. Left to his own devices this unassuming man will happily just chill out for a while and turn down Jakes notion to just have a little drink. As we all know though, petrol is perfectly stable until that flame of Jakes eventually takes hold and that is when all bets are off and the game changes completely. Nelson is a wild man waiting to be set free and there is no better place for a wild man than Thailand on a Friday night.

Anyway I better go back and start at the beginning as to how a casual few hours at a local stadium turned into coming home on the back of a moped taxi at 8am. No the best method of transport after a few drinks but when it is the only one available you kind of have to go with the flow Thai style.

All week the trainers and staff at Tiger have been promoting the Friday night fight at the Suwit Stadium. It was a promotional fight and had some of the trainers taking part so seemed like a good opportunity to see what was going on and also meet some people people from the camp as it seemed like most people were going to it. Most people met up at Tiger at about 8pm as they had organised some “taxis” to take us down to the stadium. The reason that deserves quote marks is what this is Thailand and certain things are more of a fluid concept than fact. The fact was that the preferred method of transportation to the stadium was a Toyota Hilux Pickup truck with 6 people in the cab and 12 in the back, packed in and hanging on for dear life. For a few days I have been thinking that Thailand doesn’t really have traffic law as such or any health and safety directive and  this just confirmed it for me. In truth it was quite a bonding experience for us in the back of the flatbed. Since we were packed in so tight we were practically sat on each others knees and then held onto each other to make sure no one fell out. It was only about a 4 minute drive but that bit of shared fear was probably what we needed to give us an appreciate of life and an insight into how the other half live. The best part was that the we had to meet up at 8pm for the fights starting at 8.30 and our makeshift taxi didnt arrive until closer to 9 and we were still in time for the fights. If someone had of told us where the stadium actually was most of us would have happily walked as it was only about 15 mins walk from the camp. Then again we would have had our shared sardine experience.

 I think many of us expected quite a large stadium when in fact it us only quite a small place seating a few hundred people but I suppose that is all that is required for a local fight, more like a friendly kickabout than a championship game. None of this took away from the atmosphere of the place though as locals and tourists alike piled their way inside for the nights events. As ever our firestarter Jake insisted we get a few beers from the bar / canteen. When he saw the prices though he wasn’t too happy and soon found out that we could get the beers much cheaper from the shop outside. Our plucky Aussie was then on a mission for cheap beer and returned a few minutes later with a couple of carrier bags full of beer, quite proud of himself. I grabbed a nice chicken skewer fresh from the BBQ while we waited for the fights to start. Since this is Thailand why bother having the BBQ outside, that would just be an inconvenience. Instead they were cooking on a gas BBQ in the corner of the stadium, no one caring in the slightest.

After plenty of waiting the fights started and we got to finally see what we had been waiting for. The first fight of the night was between 2 young boys. They couldn’t have been more than 8 or 9 but these 2 kids really want at it and even had mini 6 packs. Over here Muay Thai is the main sport and everyone seems to train and be conditioned for it from an early age. I bet even those little kids could have kicked me hard enough to do some damage. The next fight was adults and contained a lot more clinching and knees than big kicks. Since this was more of a friendly than a competition all of the fighters were not going quite as hard as they probably could have. It is quite easy to injure yourself with a big kick if the other person blocks it properly so sometimes not worth the risk. Although some of the fights seemed like exhibitions others did look more like grudge matches where they really did go for each other and the crowd went wild. 2 of the fights ended up in “knockouts” with the opponents not being able to continue after big hits to the body that took them down and kept them there. People seem to think that it just a punch to the face that will take someone out of action and win a fight but body shots can be just as brutal, even worse. A well timed shot that isn’t expected will wind someone and take them out of the game completely.

In every single fight of the night, no matter if it ended with a points decision or a decisive win the one thing that was not missing was sportsmanship. The people in the ring might have been trying to take each others heads off during the fight but as soon as bell rang they would instantly change and begin to celebrate together. Even if one man was on the floor they would help them to their feet for the joint celebration and it was obvious that there was a lot of mutual respect even from the strongest of rivals.

By far the most heated and passionate fight of the night had to go to the girls as there seemed to be no love lost there. A European girl (who we later found out was Swedish) took on a local girl and it truly was a brawl. With elbows flying and noone pulling their punched it wasnt long before our beloved Sweden had taken an elbow to the nose, opening it up for a torrent of blood. This didnt even seem to slow either of them down though and they carried on a the same pace for 4 more rounds before the local was crowned the winner. All we could think while watching from the stands was “wow, those girls are gorgeous and could kill us easily”. A slightly emasculating experience but a great sight to watch. As with all the fight though friendship was made after the final bell and it turns out that we would end up seeing some more from Sweden before the night was over.

I have just realised how much I have written so far and only managed to describe the first few hours of the night with no information yet on what turn of evens occurred to turn the few hours at a local fight into a whole night of partying until the club closed around us. Since my battery is nearly dead I think I will turn this into a 2 parter and fill you in on the rest of the info this afternoon.

Sorry to leave anyone hanging but trust me, it will be worth a read.