Northern Thailand

Chiang Mai
I was last in Thailand a few months back at the beginning of my whistle stop tour of Asia and had the luck to visit Chiang Mai back then. The city is rich in history and culture and is a remarably easy and laid back place to visit. Arriving into Thailand with my Australian friend Dave I met up with TG, a friend since the age of 2, to travel together for a while. They had never been to Chiang Mai and were eager to 'sample' the cities many delights.

So with a strong recommendation about the cooking course at The Chilli Club they left early in the morning to learn the art of Thai cooking.

Thai master Kickboxing
One of the things which has always interested me about Thai culture is the kickboxing. Hundreds of years old the sport basically consists of two men going into a ring and beating the shit out of each other! Unlike American wrestling this sport is no holds bars and just about anything goes, including kneeing, punching and of course kicking. Their no play acting here and no one is stupid enough to think what is happening is anything else but real.

So paying the rather steep 400 Bhat price tag we jumped into a tuk-tuk for our nights entertainment. Arriving into a rather normal looking boxing ring we learnt that we were in for a rather special treat. One of the fights had a western Englishman fighting which was an uncommon and rare occurence. Everyone appeared to be excited at this prospect, us at seeing 'one of our own fight' and the Thai's obviously happy at seeing a foreigner get the crap kicked out him!

The first two fights were 'minor' ones involving kids who couldn't have been much older than 15 or 16. Basically they take part to get some experience and watching them walk up the steps to the ring I couldn't help but be impressed by their effort and sheer determination. Admitedly I wondered how stupid they were for wanting to fight but felt it was best to keep those kind of feelings to myself!

Two of the fights ended early due to injuries to the fighters. The others went the full period (usually there are five rounds of 3 minutes). The English fighter in his second fight was up against an experienced fighter of 100 fights. Looking even balder than me Justin was a youngster from the south of England in his early twenties. I'll give him credit for putting up a fight and not getting knocked out but rather unsurprisingly he lost the fight through a points decision.

The night was very enjoyable and Thai Kickboxing is definitely an experience which I would recommend to people. Provided of course you don't get the creeps watching people getting beaten to a pulp!