Muay Thai in Muong Thai (that means Thailand, I think)

Today, Wadleigh, me and Dennis (from Germany) went to see some muay thai at Lumpini Stadium. Outside the crowded entrance, some lady kept on trying to get us to buy ringside seats, but we weren’t having it. We wanted to sit in the cheap seats where hundreds of Thais would hopefully be screaming and betting like crazy. We weren’t disappointed.

The fights were intense and in every match somebody would bleed. The fighters would always knee each other in the stomach, and each time this happened, the packed crowd would scream the same word, which I think meant knee. The ringside seats were full of white people, but for a while, we were the only white people in the third class area. Fortunately, we didn’t have to worry about anybody stealing our wallets. All the muay thai fans would stay far away from us since we’re all tall and they couldn’t see over our big fat Western heads.

We only stayed for a few matches; each lasted around half an hour. It was, as Wadleigh said, “hotter than Thailand in here” and we were all exhausted. We got an incredibly fast and crazy taxi cab back home. It only took half an hour, which was quite a feat that had us on the edge of our seats as the cabbie served in and out of traffic at 120 kmh.

The muay thai fights were an awesome (yet overpriced) experience, and the meal we had right before was also something totally unique. It was a buffet full of raw food ranging from chicken to cow intestines to squid. You put the food you want on a plate and then cook it on a strange device on your table. We were all thoroughly confused, and the staff gave us tongs to help with the meat since we had no idea how to operate chop sticks. It was pretty embarrassing, although it was a humorous learning experience.