Happy birthday...

...to ME!

yes i am 26, for the love of god, and my quarter life crisis must come to and end. in a bit. and once again i am in bangkok on my own. yes i am on kao san road. and what of it?

i decided to treat my birthday self to a stack of muay thai merchandise because i am special and i deserve it. besides are irish john maw used to say: "sure, we're not here for a long time, we're here for a good time". irish john.

tonight i am gonna go to lumpini to see a fighter that i saw get creamed once before. his name is gonpipob. i am not joking. he is nails but he got well telt last month by the champion of ratchadamnoen (anuwat) who put him on his ass with hard boxing and low kicks. tonight we'll see if he does better in his home stadium. lumpini, by the way, is awesome.

sasaki gave me some inside chat the other day. apparently the two stadia (competing fairly evenly for the number one spot) are very different to fight in, even favouring different styles of fighter. ratchadamnoen favours the technical boxer with a 'gentleman referee'. lumpini is more the home of the fighter with referees that give you hell if you are not trying to knock eachother out with every punch. sasaki fought there and dug it. he was definately a fighter. i saw one of his lumpini fights on dvd and he just kept walking towards this guy trying to spark him out with punches. this was at the expense of his arms and ribs and legs and the match. hard bastard though. and one of the coolest men i have ever met. and a pervert.

leaving ubon has left me feeling a bit empty. just a few more days training would have been ace. i'm gonna miss a ton of fights too. maki (tremendous japanese fella) is going out to murder the guy who beat him last month. no-one's gonna bet against the japanese on this one. i bet against him on the women's marathon and we all know how that went. paula man, what happened? mike is getting supremely fit and is gonna scare the crap out of everyone when he gets back. with his kick and tales of wrong japanese blokes.

a quick note on cultures. you read what you can in guidebooks to prepare not to make faux pas or get 'culture shock' (bu-bu-bu-bum!). but some of it is shite. like when they tell you that japanese people don't get sarcasm. japanese people do get sarcasm as much as non japanese people do. i remember a wee kid in my class saying "i enjoy english" and pissing himself laughing. he does not enjoy english. and youshi did the whole fake crying thing when i left. ironic. so shut it rough planet. you are wrong.

buuuuuuuuuut. it is totally time to come home and i think the length of time i was out here was good. i get the feeling i may never see ubon again but that's alright too. there's penty other places to lark about.

ooh yeah, vanessa wooped her opponent for those of you awaiting the report. cheers davey for letting me know!

lastly, don't cry for me all alone on my birthday, i am in bangkok going to lumpini and you are at work and the weather is crap. hahahahhahahhahahahahhahahahaa.

homeinaweek

Alright yous lot. well perhaps 'lot' is bit hopeful.

it's one week until i resurface in scotland. before this i will spend 6 million hours in dubai airport trying not to buy anything. i did it last time but it is damn hard. i have never been to a place that is so selltastic or capitalismorific. and i have been in thailand. dubai airport has more expensive shops per yard than beverley hills. you can buy everything. EVERYTHING. and they have ben and jerry's icecream. but i am gonna sit with my thai water in a silent little protest to myself. sticking it to the man. unless i get hungry. or i need a tennis raquet or a fur coat.

the training has been going well. been ages since i sparred so i was happy to step into the ring today. youshi showed me which one of us would do the errands should we ever be in prison together.

i'm training hard so that i can stay fit for the www.CALEDONIANMUAYTHAI.co.uk trip to New Jersey to fight in an amateur muay thai competition. amateur means you get a head guard and shin guards. different ballgame really but essentially two people trying to inflict real pain on one-another. yes, it looks like i get to hit americans in the face. let me qualify this by explaining that some of the people i admire most are americans. indeed of all the travellers i have met and befriended, the americans have often been the most well read and sensitive to world issues. let me qualify that by reiterating the fact that i am still gonna enjoy it a lot.

canny wait for it and my preparation is looking pretty good if you exclude the time-zone and travelling effects. "mummy, which country am i in now? who is that man over there? OW." should be fine. i have a week at home for everyone at caley to try their pathetic western styles on me. "what did you learn in thailand pete", "i learnt this: HAYAAAH! and this: KIAIAAIIAIAIA!!!".

then i come back to reality and start thinking about real life. maybe i'll take all the british titles (easy) before settling into a job and regular life.

if anyone who knows vanessa lil reads this tell her good luck and show the auld bitch that big ole kick you always beat my legs with. NB: V is fighting some fighter in a fight.

wish i could be there to see you batter her.

MEDIC!!!!

I'be god a gold.

It serves me right for not touching anything wooden when i e-mailed to guy to tell him how perfect training was going. yesterday i didn't train. i just tried to find out how to get rid of this cold quickly. perhaps the east could help me.

i got my feet massaged; ate chickeny-rice soup; drank boiling water; didn't drink anything cold; got the back of my head pressed so hard i could see mr massage's thumb coming out of my nose and i slept. all pretty good and organic but i was still feeling rough. even after the coffee with ginseng init (top secret) my nose was dribbling (dribbling a bit faster as i was vibrating. i don't drink coffee). on to the motorbike again to find the answer...

actifed and tylenol! apparently these ancient herbs are just the jobby for a cold. couldn't beleive it. but i could believe it. people over here love to medicate. antibiotics are like sweets. there seems to be a line that you cross. before the line you are not quite ill and you should keep soldiering on but once the line has been crossed you bang as many pills in you as possible and stop all activity. that's why there are pharmacies every ten yards.

anyway i feel a bit better today and i'm gagging to get back into training. not training is boring.

Muay Thai

have i even mentioned how tremendous muay thai is? how remiss of me.

nim nuam was strutting around at the end of the session the other day beaming at all the pooped bodies. he said "MUAY THAI!". totally. the highs and lows have me convinced that it is like drugs.

you have a good training session and you feel utterly high. often start talking about solutions to the worlds ills. everything seems clearer. it is also true that you are best talking to other people in the same state or someone is going to think you are a freak. you look forward to training MORE and more often. you sure as hell miss it when it is not there.

when you are down after a crap training session everything is awful. too much importance placed upon trivial negatives and there seems to be no way back up. irish pete was heard to say he considered getting on a plane this morning. in the afternoon session he was flying and talking crap with the rest of us.

"i just can't get my kicks going and i feel tired and my body is falling apart and my leg hurts and i hate thailand and the food here is shite and i can't be arsed to do any more situps". and then a few hours later, "i am so utterly sweet no-one can get anywhere near me with my hardasnails teep (front kick) and tastey footwork. yeah i want you to hit my stomach between sit-ups! YEAH 50!! YEAH!!!!"

mike has suffered me in mornings for a good while now. i want to kill everyone when i wake up. i feel very very unhappy. but then on about lap 5 of the park the endorphins kick in and the cloud clears from my head and i become a person and i start thinking about home and training ideas and the future and stuff. i also generally get a song or two stuck in my head. today i was blessed as i had a dream that i was freddie mercury last night so it was all queen live magic tunes. everybody likes queen.

i am just beginning to get a hold on my training. i know how much to increase the situps by and i know that even if i feel like my thighs are going to explode after the morning run i'll be okay for pads in a few minutes. gone (nearly) is the aimless stumbling towards the coach with robotic punches. starting to think about it more and work in bursts. i know when to take a day off and i don't feel guilty about it like before.

breakfast is always an utter pleasure. we go to the place down the road and eat filled omlettes on rice and watch channel v hoping for queen videos (avril lavine is getting a wee bittie tiresome). we drink vitamilk, which is like soymilk but better because of the high sugar content. the pretence is that it provides much need protein for our big athletic bodies. the reality is that it is tasteygorgeous and 10 baht. then we sleep or not until the afternoon session. nuts.

Happy Birthday Ma'am

Yes, the queen of thailand is 72 and everyone is loving it. i have heard that if your child is born on this day of days it gets free education for life. this may be a) a lie or b) the truth. dunno.

the park was chock-full of thai kids bigging the q up. two came up to me and asked if i would mind having my picture taken with them. now i can feel myself falling into 'whitemanstayinasiatoolongnosity' as i did not find this unusual and merely suggested using the big gold doodah as a background.

the newspaper i bought is some interesting reading. thailand LOVES the queen. i have also learnt that daimler chrysler and nestle really dig her. full page adverts in the bangkok post just to say happy birthday. how kind. the one for nestle shows queenie holding a wee baby. she has maybe just fed it some toxic fake milk. if nestle didn't make such delicious products i would totally boycot their ass.

when she was younger m'lady was poor as jenny from the block. her da told her not to be ashamed. i am thinking he maybe also said MARRY THE KING. both messages heeded.

i trained hard this morning but i could not bring myself to defile her majesty by sweating on the royal afternoon so i tooled about on irish pete's bike with him looking for stuff to do. needless to say we ate a lot and went to the shops.

every single day shino, my nextdoor neighbour, answers the door wearing the same pair of pants with a toy snake coming out of them. his face wears a look of genuine surprise. i think he smokes crack. he should be on the telly. in addition, he put a massive blob of superglue on his left foot to remedy the massive torn blister. that's a new one. he says it hurts now. it looked sore too. and now, a prayer to zinc oxide tape. shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

i am feeling a bit homesick and really looking forward to all the japes ahead of me at home. by japes i mean starting a new job. i've heard jobs are a great laugh. they'll have to go some to beat pissing about training in a martial art full time.

in other news

if any of you back home are feeling a bit unwell or smash yourself in to a wall or eat a bad egg or something then i suggest you go to stirling royal infirmary and ask for doctor kim rollinson. mention my name and she can get you morphine or a cast or syringes or a baby.

i know it's a bit out of the way but it's WHO you know.

i need some sleep. dogs.

Jelly

Oh my goodness this is good. i just remembered it and i can't wait until tomorrow to tell you.

i have been talking to nim nuam of and on learning wee snipits of inside tips for fighting at lumpini. i glossed over the doing 100 sit-ups, getting smacked in the stomach full force with a thai pad between every one. oh it might work, but i am sceptical. another tip is to use the laces to pull the stuffing in the glove off the knuckles and round the back. this leaves a thin layer of leather and some zinc oxide tape between you fist and your opponent's face. i'll buy that for a dollar.

you can also put some thai oil on the palm of your glove and push it in your opponents face blinding him temporarily. it's good but it's not right.

but then we started to talk about clinching and we both know that i am not very good at it. how can you avoid the vice-like grip of an opponent hell-bent on clinching and kneeing you to a pulp? how? i will tell you how. you put KY jelly in your vaseline tub. this you apply to shoulders, neck and pretty much all over the fighter's body. yes it is not strictly legal and would result in disqualification. but imagine trying to get a good hold on someone KYed right up. not easy, as chris will tell you. i asked who was the first person to come up with this idea but nim nuam seemed to just say "wasn't me" and change the subject.

imagine sitting in the corner opposite your opponent with a huge tub of KY next to you.

the mysterious east

when i was quite young my brother and i sat down opposite eachother on chairs in his bedroom. we had a shin-kicking competition. yes, we sat there taking it in turns to smack eachother in the shin as hard as we could. i think we had shoes on.

MUAY THAI!!!

the fight and some drinking being over, my mind turned to quick recovery for more training. ole and sasaki suggested 'grradampon'. indeed, ole was was kind enough to give me half a bottle advising that i drink it early in the morning and do not go out for 2 hours. perhaps his danish mind mixed up the english words because i was still weeing out ma bum 5 hours later. grradampon tastes really really awful. if you took all the sugar out of cough medicine and put in some hydrochloric acid and some other nasty things you would come pretty close. drinking it was extremely bad fun. big mike seems to take issue with the wisdon of taking laxatives after a fight. but where his mind says "why?", mine simply says "bring it on, thailand". do i feel better since then? i dunno. a bit maybe.

what else is eastern and mysterious is 'brands: essence of chicken'. now big mike will tell you that it is just chicken stock, but i am reliably informed by my eastern compadres that it makes you strong (also strong in the trouser department according to sasaki). mike is wrong. it gives me power.

chat, the massage man has been trying to sort out my knackered shins for me. he is very good at the massaging. for very sore bits he uses home made oil. i asked what was in it. hot chillis, cloves, oil and BOA CONSTRICTOR BLOOD THAT'S WHAT. this strikes me as being the most awesome thing ever and the idea itself may be enough to heal my bumped shins.

who am i to question the wisdom of the orient? who? noone that's who. so i will take every single funny smelling concoction going and i will love it.