Daily Report: The Main Event

The local electric company...
My dad will love this photo.This morning when I got out of bed, I had no electricity in my house. The reason being that this was what was going on out on the main road. Looking at this, you kind of wonder how the power stays on at all in Thailand. Obviously no work (or blogging) was going to get done.


The beach below Pratumnak hill...
Best beach in Pattaya, hands down.Therefore it was off to the beach with Pot, Willie, Birt, and Frank. The power finally came back on at 3:00 p.m. and I went home to get in a little work. This has been easily my worst work week so far. It's Wednesday, and I haven't even done a full half day's work yet total this week. Ick.


All Thai boxing matches start off
with some meditation, prayer,
stretching, and a litle bit of posing.Tonight it was off to the big Thai boxing tournament on the school grounds at Second and Pattaya South roads. Great stuff. This photo was the beginning of the first match between two teenagers. It ended with a broken arm sustained from blocking a kick. Yes: Little 80-pound kids kick that hard.

So you can only imagine what this guy would do to you. He's about 5-foot-2 and 180 pounds of pure muscle... most of it below his waist. He's one of Thailand's (the world's) best Muay Thai boxers.

Bob had his stand set up, and basically catered the whole event. I would guess that he sold about 1,000 hamburgers and hotdogs altogether.

Pui is the principal reason I went to this event. She just loves Thai boxing. During the particularly exciting parts, she would jump up and do a happy dance and squeak "Yes! Yes!" and do her own little boxing moves. (She quickly became the darling of the crowd in our section.)

The main event of the evening was between two of the top-ranked Thai boxers today, one of whom was a Russian fellow. He and the Thai guy he was fighting were both about 160 pounds, I would guess, and both of them could get their feet from the canvas to their opponent's ribcage in about the same time that a Western heavyweight boxer could throw a jab. The Thai guy won. We had a retired (farang) Muay Thai boxer named Dominick at our table who said that it was a fair judgement based on the point system in Thai boxing, although we other farangs disagreed on principle, rooting for our own. But what a fight it was. Jesus. Kicks so hard against arms that you could hear the smack of it 30 feet back from the ring over the music and roar of the crowd, grappling and throwing to the mat, spinning and whirling, bashing with elbows and knees, and even a little punching.