How To Travel To Thailand For Muay Thai Training & Debauchery!

This is going to be the start of a series of posts, tentatively titled, “Project MMA” … which of course … stands for Project Mixed Martial Arts.

Me and my best friend, Alex have decided to travel the world and learn — direct from the source — the mofuckin’ martial arts that are popular in MMA now.

This year: Muay Thai. Next, Brazil … But for now …

How To Travel To Thailand For Muay Thai Training and Debauchery!

Here’s how we set it up:

We decided to use Korean Air for our flight, which in some way (I don’t quite fully understand) is connected to Delta Airlines. Which means, during all our travels we’ll be racking up points and then be able to use those for future trips.

For our trip:

• Richmond, VA to Atlanta, GA
• Atlanta, GA to Incheon, Seoul Korea
• Korea to Phuket, Thailand.

Why We Chose Phuket Thailand & Tiger Muay Thai …

Well, there’s a number of reasons.

1. Phuket is spelt in a way that I can get away with telling people “I’m going to Fuck-It For a Month!”
2. It’s an “island” paradise. Not really an island, but tropical, and popular with tourists. Lotsa beaches.
3. Did I mention lotsa beaches?
4. Tiger Muay Thai has recently updated their website and it’s the only one that doesn’t look like a dyslexic 5th grader put it together …
5. There’s a lot of UFC fighters, etc that supposedly trained/train there, etc …

In reality, when you’re going to a country you know absolutely nothing about, you’ve never been there before, etc … you really want the most information possible before making your decision.

That’s where ole’ Tiger came through. Lots of info on their site, not just on the camp, but the surrounding areas, shit to do, etc

So yea, that’s why we settled on that. As a side note: I’ve heard Fairtex Muay Thai camps over here are overpriced …. Can anyone confirm this?

Weird Things That Happened On The Trip …

I’ve only traveled one other time across the big ole pond, it was an 18 hour flight if I remember. And my legs did not turn into balloons.

This time they did:

I’m not quite sure why that happened. I think it was poor blood flow and sleeping almost the whole time instead of getting up and walking around.

I now have more sympathy for overweight people and people with cankles (sp? kankles?)

Oh, and if you’re flying on Korean Air, be advised that all the Korean businessmen in first class will drink … literally … every last drop of scotch and whiskey on the airplane. Then you will probably want to negotiate for a suitable liquor replacement … only to find … that you are stuck with diet coke and no fermented grain goodness to pour into it.

Korean Airports Are Cool!

So, admittedly, I’m not very good with my digital camera … so … this came out a little blury, but Korean Airports are pretty cool:

Why?

Because there’s so much culture … so many things to learn from another nation … so many things to explore and see how other people see the world through their (sue me) slanty eyes …

So what did me and my travel companion do with this opportunity to expand our horizons and become more cultured, more educated and more refined.

We drank some beer of course … I’m not sure if you can get it in the states … it’s Asahi beer!

What’s Missing From This Picture?

Now, if you notice, my FAITHFUL traveling companion and I are sitting at this wonderful establishment and enjoying our adult beverages with only one small pitfall.

There happens to be an empty seat between us.

Why is that?

Could it be that someone was supposed to go on this trip with us … only to find … that he didn’t really love us as he claimed and didn’t really want to be super awesome and travel the world learning dope-ass martial arts and racking up debaucherous stories to tell his grandchildren one day?

Yes. That sounds about right.

For now, he shall remain un-named. But he was supposed to be sitting right here …

Getting Into Thailand and Finding Your Room At Midnight …

So, after the other 6 hour flight from Korea to Phuket … and more swelling of my sensitive little feets … we landed.

First, we got off the plane and made our way through immigrations without incident (no small feet mind you).

Next, we went outside to find the guy from the camp that was supposed to be meeting us and giving us a ride. Immediately we were set upon by taxi drivers and people wanting to give us rides/hotels/sexual favors/etc …

TIP: It’s ok to be firm and tell people “no”. Walk away if you must. They are agressive, you can be also.

EXTRA TIP: If you get tired of waiting, just say “Yes!”

That’s what we did. Agreed to a 600 baht fair ride to the camp. And away we went.

“Why’s He Driving On The Wrong Side of The Road Dude?”

Now, I’m not sure why, but I forgot they drive on the left side of the road over here. Once I got over that, there’s the peculiar habits of foreign drivers that I have forgotten about since my last trip abroad.

In Brussells, they liked to play “almost bumper tag” with their cars (all Mercedes and all manual for some odd reason).

Here in Thailand, it’s just about the same, except it may be a small motorbike, scooter, or even pedestrians they play this little game with. Also, it must be a cultural obsession to see how LITTLE you can use your brakes on your car and still avoid fatal accidents.

No matter, we made the trip in record time …

“Where’s Our Room Holmes?”

So we get there after dark. And after much standing around and not speaking a lot of each other’s languages we get shown to our room.

Of course, after having to wake up the person in charge of the room, we are not getting the room we had reserved. We’re told that they would fix it in the morning (today).

So for now, me and my companion are sharing the same little 1 bedroom room with hardwood covered with blankets posing as a bed …

No matter, we dig into the Litre bottle of Jack Daniels I bought — customs free thank you! — pop some melatonin and we’re off to sleep …

“Good Morning Viet … Thailand!”

We wake up and it’s GORGEOUS out.

Scratch that. We wake up to a damn rooster crowing at whatever ungodly hour roosters wake up at. It was still dark. So I roll back over and go to sleep.

Sidenote: if I ever hear some fool say some sh*t like, “Oh how romantic it would be to live on a farm and have a rooster wake you in the morning” I’ll he-man-bitch-slap him/her myself. It’s not romantic. It’s annoying. And really, I got the point after the first crowing. Why do more.

The view out our back window is ok, it’s got palm trees which means I’m happy …

Ah yes, it does not take much to make me happy, some palm trees and sun and I’m happy as can be!

So we take a couple walks this morning, first to the office to get checked in and register to train for the month, etc.

• 24,000 baht a piece for the month (700 USD)
• We bought a pair of boxing gloves each, me a mouthpiece, two t-shirts, two pairs of shorts, some soap and accessories for about 12,000 baht (350 USD)
• find out that the reason we didn’t have our room was the lady who owned it had a last minute emergency visit from relatives … that’s cool … so we’ll wait it out for a week and then we should get the room we wanted

So that was taken care of, then we went for a walk …

Then we set out to find a 7/11 which they have over here. We found a little mart instead and got some little black coffees that were delicious and I’ll post more pics of later.

Here’s the view of the camp from the outside, off the road, while you’re waiting for the out-for-blood drivers to create a gap long enough for you to run across the street through …

That’s about it for this first entry … stay tuned as we will cover …

• Trips to the beach!
• Native women VS tourists!
• Prostitution. Yes. Really.
• Actual Muay Thai Training!
• And much, much more!