final route maps

self explanatory, though some of the backtracking is confusing. Apologies.











and the itinerary list insofar as here's where I went:

Beijing
Xian
Lanzhou
Jiayaguan
Dunhuang
Urumqui
Kashgar
Auytagh
Urumqui
Chengdu
Emei Shan
Chengdu
Kunming
Macau
Hong Kong
Dehli
Leh
Stok Park area
Leh
Manali
Shimla
Chandgarh
Amritsar
Wagah
New Dehli
Agra
Mathura
Chennai
Mamallapuram
Pondicherry
Trichy
Madurai
Thekaddy
Ernakulam
Cochi
Alepphuza
Kollom
Varkala
Trivandrum
Bombay
Kuala Lumpur
Kota Kinabalu
Kinabalu Negara
Mulu
Mulu Negara/Camp V
Singapore
Johor Baru
Melaka
Hanoi
Sa Pa
Bac Ha
Bai Chay
Hue
Hoi An
Da Nang
Saigon
Siem Reap
Battambang
Bangkok
Sukhothai
Mae Sot
Myawaddy
Tak
Chiang Rai
Chiang Khong
Houeyxai
Luang Prabang
Vientane
Nong Khai
Udon Thani
Chiang Mai
Koh Samui/Chaweng
Bang Phli/Bang Na

Ramble on?

last of the goat?

Tokyo Narita International Airport, Japan

Wow, so it's finally down to this. Not without a heavy heart this morning did I set out for Don Muang airport for the last time, both because it's over (for now...) and because I had about 3 hours worth of sleep after sortieng with friends way out in Bang Na at the fabled "The Street of Hollywood" disco (and my exploits there over the last few weeks there probably deserves a blog of its own, but...) I knew this day would come eventually (and sometimes it seemed like it would never come.) But overall I can't believe it happened so soon.

But the sun came up today and I got on the plane regardless, just like the sun will come up tomorrow (which is 36 hours or something away for me. So I'll just resign myself to business class splendor (if American Airlines business class can be called that....btw, I bought the tix on JAL, which was great the first leg, it turns out second leg was JAL 740 operated by AA...glad I paid a premium for that..)and my shiny new Omega watch and try to ease my pain through the false comforts of material goods. After all - it's christmas everybody. My compliments, by the way to Captain Takahashi, who set down the 747 at Tokyo with a landing as smooth as a thai girl's countertop.

On approach and landing in Tokyo I was confronted with two semi-comforting images. The first being one that I've seen a few times on the way over and back here when flying over the land of the rising sun (where strangely i've never been save the airport)and that is the sight of Mount Fuji poking up above the cloud cover. I hate to be cliched but there is such a zen-like serenity to any image of Fuji, but especially so from above. If you were god and you set out to create an aesthetically perfect looking mountain, your finished product would look like this. No wonder guys like Hiroshige and Hokusai spent years and years illustrating it again and again.

The second was the sight of the winged horse logo and a Mongolian Airlines jet parked on the taxiway (it was either the "Chinggis Khan" or the "Kublai Khan", being that they only have two jets). This is significant to me insofar as that same jet (well, that one or its sister ship) served as the vehicle for my first penetration into the heart of Asia back in 2003 when I packed up for Mongolia basically on a whim. Mongolia itself was all right but ultimately not that impressive, though it was a great primer for traveling into places that are the back of the ass of beyond. Importantly that trip set the stage for last year's himalayan adventures and of course the wandering goat tour which I can without a doubt say was the greatest 6 months I've ever had.

As the shock of coming back to a place where beer costs 6$, nobody calls me a farang, and being back in real life dissipates over the next few days I'm going to congratulate myself a little bit and be a little proud of myself. Looking back, holy shit, I've done a hell of a lot in six months. Off the top of my head: I traveled 4000k down the Silk Road and went to the very end of China, hiked the 50k Emei Shan trail in two days, sipped gin at the Peninsula in Kowloon, climbed a 22,000 foot Himalayan monster (and conquered a bunch of smaller peaks for good measure), survived two months of travel on the most dangerous roadways on earth in India, safaried through the jungle at night in search of poachers, hacked my way through the Borneo rainforest, jaywalked and chewed gum in Singapore, partied well into the morning with the young and restless of all of Southeast Asia, motorbiked through the mountains of Vietnam, traversed the heart of the Mekong, trained and fought with professional fighters in the heat of Bangkok, and befriended folks from around the globe, from Ladakhi herders to Uighur urchins to Hmong hawkers to Bang Phli barmaids. And that's just the short version. It was fucking great, pardon my french.

But I'm not done yet. More to come.

More Muay Thai photos & videos

So this long-awaited post may interest only me, (now back, and jet lagged), so I have to get rid of it before I get christmas spirit fever and can't remember any of it

here's a link to a good article about Yodsaenklai (pictured below) that was written while I was at Fairtex last week. He won the fight last night (was last night when I first wrote this- MAV), btw, and is now the undisputed world champ at 154 lbs. Maybe one day he'll be man enough to move up to 168 and challenge me.....

Here's some training vids of him, what doesn't come across in these videos is the sound of him hitting the pads - it is loud, very, very very loud, and very violent. That's my man Yak holding the pads for him, btw. He's the only thai at fairtex who's big enough to hold the pads for Yody without falling over/and or crying.

vids
short


long(in this one he rips off about 30 something kicks in a row to end a 6 minute training round - for reference at my zenith I could get off maybe 10 weak kicks to end a 4 minute round)


Below is a series of photos and videos from Dec 9 at Lumphini Sanma Muay Thai - aka Lumphini Stadium which is the mecca of Muay Thai throughout the universe. It's sort of Madison Square Garden combined with the Super Bowl in terms of importance to the sport (ironically, it's named after nearby Lumphini Park, which is named after the town of Lumphini, Nepal, fabled birthplace of the decidedly non-violent gentleman Guatama B.) The stadium itself isn't much, kind of a large shack with a corrugated roof and some ineffectual ceiling fans that holds a few thousand screaming, gambling thais and a few hundred bewildered tourists most evenings. The downgrade nature of things there though in my opinion (I've been about 5 times in the last year or so now) only adds to its authenticity. Add in the music (traditional thai music is played during all matches), the crowd, and Friday night in Bangkok and you have the recipe for an intoxicatingly good time, especially if you choose to get intoxicated during it with access to free flowing beer chang

One of the really cool things about Lumphini's decrepitness (supposedly it is being replaced by a newer more modern facility that was to be ready two years ago but in typical Thai fashion, is shrouded in controversy that nobody understands) is that it has no real locker room. The hallway outside the concession stand and men's restroom on the lower level doubles as the dressing room for the fighters, so you have a backstage pass whether you like it or not if nature calls, which means you can get some good pics.

pictures


Lumphini Sanma, the calm before the storm





respect..






Some wai kru action



game face





backstage

And here's a lot of action shots









videos

Here's scenes from the wai kru, the buddhist dance-ish thing that precedes every match. Allegedly afficionados use the wai kru to determine who to bet on (oh, but yeah, gambling is illegal in thailand, ha ha ha, and so is prostitution)but I think that's just some bullshit line they feed the tourist guide books as most of the fighters I know don't care much for it.

http://s41.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=329UGIEWK55OF3OSHU1F5BZD1F

And here's some regular action. Again, much louder in person

short

long

The End?

Bangkok, Thailand

 

First, apologies are in order insofar as I haven't been updating as much as I should.  The reason is I had typed up a post with more muay thai vids and pictures but I have had tremendously shitty luck with finding a computer with a working USB port so I could not upload them.  I didn't want to get out of sequence but I guess it will have to be that way.

 

Second, an update, last weekend was my last hurrah at Fairtex camp (congrats, by the way, to Yodsaenklai,  (pictured below) who added a world title to his collection on Saturday in Sydney and now literally is the baddest man on the planet at 154 lbs)  Although my initial impressions of the camp were less than favorable and I expected to have a heinous time, it ended up being a shitload of fun and I was a beloved figure when I left.  My trainer was getting bleary eyed, and everybody from the fighters to the cleaning lady to the office workers were saying "when you come back, when you come back?" as I walked out the door.  And you know what? Even though the downtime there was rather boring and the accomodations spartan, I probably will go back.  When you're with friends it doesn't really matter so much.

 

On the negative side, i don't think I lost a single kilo of weight despite the training (though I did make a lot of progress physically, at the end I was going 5 4-minute rounds in the AM session and 7 4-minute sparring rounds in the PM session - up from 3 & 3 when I first started, and finishing it off with 200 situps).  I chalk that up to the fact that each training session was followed by a gigantic, calorific thai food breakfast and dinner at which I stuffed my tired exhausted body to the maximum extent.  Also I didn't do much running insofar as I had some nasty toe blisters from the canvas which I will not detail insofar as it is disgusting.  I did become more competent in the deadly art of MT - I got in a few decent shots on my trainer in the sparring sessions, though I got much more than I gave, of course.

 

Since then, I have been hanging out at the Shangri-La in Bangkok, shopping, living, etc.  Not quite as nice as the Oriental or the Peninsula but nice enough.  My first impressions of Bangkok (from 3 days in October 2004) were less than favorable but since then, having been in and around BKK for about the past month or so, the place has grown on me significantly.  The biggest negatives in Bangkok that I took from last year were weather, scammers, and traffic.  As far as the first two, I've been in Asia so long  I hardly even notice them anymore (plus the weather the last week in BKK has even had some bluish skies above the pollution and only in the 80's, which is as good as it gets here).  As far as traffic, I've quickly mastered the Skytrain, Metro, and Public Ferries (which I pride myself on, am sort of an urban mass transit Kalahari tribesman) and have gotten a serious handle on the geography of the place, which makes life a lot easier.  Plus I tell every cab driver that I just spent time at Fairtex (and not telling them that I suck at fighting) so it makes them think twice about scamming me.

 

But all this is secondary and a long way of saying that in about 18 hours I am on a plane headed back to JFK.  I suppose I should come up with some grand essay but I'm a bit hung over at the moment and really I don't know what to say.  About a month ago I was dining alone in a restaurant in Nong Khai during Loy Krathong (as I am often wont to do) and I started writing down the things that I've learned on this trip, but for the life of me I can't remember what the hell I wrote.  I've learned that I enjoy having a good time is the main thing.  Which is ridiculous to have to learn, but probably more people should. 

 

I'm not done with this blog yet though I've got a few more things stored up, though I will probably be posting them from stateside, alas.

 

 

more Thai pictures

more thailand pix:



monkeying around at Wat Phra Si in Chiang Mai




me and Al at Doi Inthanon, thailand's highest peak



Karen villagers doing what they do best: weave weave and weave


Jack Carles, pere of alex, and man of the people as this Hmong boy obviously feels.



Audtachai kicking some stuff



I'm pretty sure Yodsaenklai's leg has more muscle than my whole body. I don't know who I feel more sorry for, the pad or poor Mitt, who has to hold it.



"sugar" Kaew, another fairtex prodigy.





Audtachai in action again, you don't want to get hit with one of those elbows.

Videos to come......stay tuned.

Kicking Around

Fairtex Muay Thai Camp, Bangphlee, Thailand

 

some notes on the cast of characters and life generally here: of the fellow trainees, it's mostly professional fighters from Europe (such as Herman, the factory manager/kickboxer from Graz, Austria who fights under the name "the Hermanator" (actually he spells it "Horrmanator", but that's a little too Soi Cowboy for my tastes) as well as your occasional wannabe such as myself and the two hyperactive Spanish brothers from the Canary Islands who are about the funniest two guys you'll ever meet.  No real assholes or ego cases, which is surprising given the nature of the business but obviously good.  The only problem is that very few of these guys ever wants to go out and have a drink (save on Saturday, Sunday being our only off day).  They go out, but they drink coke.  Not my style.

 

More my style are the trainers, who consist of retired fighters that sit at the little street kitchen across the street and polish off cigarettes, cheap beer (Beer Leo) and Thai whiskey by the boatload after each day, despite the fact they have a 5 AM wakeup call 6 days out of 7.   Good guys mostly, and the fact that a lot of them are half crazy from being punch-drunk (these guys usually have fought in 100 plus matches prior to age 20) contributes to making it easier for them to get really drunk, after which all bets are basically off.  Even when not drunk, they're a funky group.  To name a few, there's Apideja, apparently a walking god among muay thai fighters, who's now a bit nuts, but incredibly friendly who likes to come up to me and say "USA good!" all the time (even W couldn't turn him off).  Likewise there is Boonma, another guy who is half crazy, speaks little english and probaably massages me too much, but has proudly said that he is christian and that baby jesu is good, which allays my fears. (after spending about 90 days in a country with as much gender confusion as Thailand  (which I love, btw), a creeping sense of paranoia sets in after a while).  I also like Yak, who, at 6-3 and 230 plus lbs, (a behemoth in Thai terms) is the epitome of the gentle giant.  He likes to practice his english with me, so imagine a big huge oxlike thai fighter, sitting next to me with an elementary english book, gleefully going over phrases like "you are my friend, yes we are friends, we are very good friends".   Funny stuff. 

 

The other folks are the real Thai fighters (not this kind - sorry, terrible joke but I had to make it).  Fairtex is kind of a dynasty in Muay Thai, consisting of a family-run company that runs 3 training centers (Bangkok, Pattaya, and one in San Francisco), promotes fights, manufactures equipment, and manages fighters.  Here there's about 6-8 actual Thai kids who fight professionally at the highest levels here, the older ones of which are among the baddest men on the face of the planet, pound for pound (pictures and videos upcoming in the next post). When they train, they basically do the same stuff as we do, yet at an exponential level of intensity.  Watching these guys hit the pads and the bags is a study in inertia being overcome and translated into pure kinetic energy in the most efficient manner possible. In other words, they tear shit up, in violent fashion. Foremost among them is Yodsaenklai, who is the baddest man in the Thailand (and possibly the world) at 154 lbs.  When he hits the pads, he rips off about 30 kicks in 25 seconds that creates a sound not unlike a machine gun - except more fearsome and certainly more lethal in reality.  Despite this, he and the rest are actually very nice kids, who are as fascinated with us as we are with them, probably due to the fact that really big money isn't a factor in muay thai as it is in US pro sports - so egos don't develop.  He also enjoys poking fun at my Singha beer gut when I do sit-ups, which I don't enjoy too much, but I'm not going to be the one to tell him that.  Also the children of some of the staffers, ranging from ages 8 and up, train sometimes, though I think they just do it because they live here rather than because they've been sent up the river to a camp as some young thai kids are - I don't think Fairtex signs a fighter to their stable till after he's had a few fights and developed a bit.   Also showing up on occasion is famed fighter Nong Tum, an attractive young...woman whose story sort of speaks for itself ( you really should click that link to see, not that there's anything wrong with that, she could kick my ass from the looks of her)