4th of July and Other Happenings

After an entire week without a single blog posting, Charlotte and I many adventures (both gastronomic and otherwise) that must be shared. Several days ago, Charlotte and I bought this mystery fruit at the market (from the same lady who sold us Charlotte's favorite brown mystery fruit). These ones were most peculiar, in that they resembled misshapen, waxy pears and had a textrure and taste similar to that of a cucumber-apple combo, if you can imagine such a thing. They were watery like cucumbers, but much more crunchy and they had a slight sweet taste. Most bizarre, although they made for a nice afternoon snack when chilled.

Behold! Mystery fruit #2!

While we'd originally planned on visiting the Chiang Mai Museum on Sunday, we were caught in a torrential downpour just after we left our apartment. We tried waiting out the rain as we munched on chicken and rice, but we soon realized that it was another when-it-rains-it-pours type of rainstorms. Not wanting to get washed down the gutter by the muddy water flooding the streets, Charlotte and I retreated back to our apartment, deciding to save the museum for another day.

Oh, and here's a super freaky anecdote: Coming back from work last week, we ran into Anne and Alex, both of whom live above us and are super-intense Muay Thai boxers at the gym we train at. Alex, who's from San Dimas, CA and used to work/teach at a Muay Thai place right near Claremont (this story already getting weird), mentioned that there were two girls at the gym who went to the Claremont Colleges. Freaky, right?! But, wait--it gets even weirder! So Charlotte and I book it over to the gym to meet them, and true enough, Karen and Dana, as they jovially introduced themselves, both graduated from Pomona a year ago and somehow ended up at the same Muay Thai place Charlotte and I train at. The chances of us running into Claremont students is quite slim (for numerous reasons, of course), one of which is that we're not in a tourist-y area at all. We're on this small residential street that's quite far from Old City. Anyways, after we talked to the girls for a bit, we learned that one of them is from Eugene, OR and used to swim with Diesel, Charlotte's boyfriend!! Ack!! Super weird! Almost Twilight Zone-ish, right? (Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo!) They were quite friendly and chatty, but they could only make it to one Muay Thai practice, since they're passing through Chiang Mai on their Southeast Asia tour. Bummer!


BUT, Charlotte also ran into Matt, a student from her French class at Whitman that had 11 students in it! We were biking to the Sunday Market during our second week here, and just as we round a corner, this guy steps out of a song-tao, turns around, and says, "Charlotte?" I couldn't get over it! We travelled half-way around the world, and still run into someone from Charlotte's 1200 student school. Clearly, neither Charlotte nor Matt could get over the weirdness of it all either, as they kept stopping mid-sentence with, "Woah, I can't believe you're here!"

On another note, Charlotte and I had a wonderful time celebrating the 4th of July yesterday with some marvelous pie. We ran across town after work, and made it just five minutes before Love at First Bite closed. Whew! When we went several weeks ago, I noticed they'd posted a sign saying all bakery items would be 20% off on the 4th. I suppose they wanted to help all the expats (and pie-loving Thais) enjoy a nice slice o' pie on Independence Day. Naturally, I'd made a mental note of this detail and we thankfully managed to get plenty o' pie. Charlotte had another slice of their insanely-good banana cream pie, while I tried the coconut cream pie, which had huge chunks of fresh coconut. Yum! I have to say, even though we had to go across town to get them and cart them home whilst hanging off the back of an overcrowded song-tao, it was worth every crumb. We also bought another rum raisin cake to share with all of the Muay Thai trainers (who we're now friends with) and a chocolate one for everyone at the office. So, as we were biking by the gym (after a lovely 4th o' July dinner of pie, coconut ice cream, chile-laden market noodles, and a pork burger for Charlotte! oh my!), we pulled over and offered Ga some of the cake. When we gave it to him, the biggest smile spread across his face. "For me?" he asked, excitedly holding the cake. "Well, you have to share it with everyone else!" Charlotte and I explained, trying to motion that he needed a knife to slice it with. However, given that Ga doesn't speak hardly any English (aside from "You go jogging jogging!" and "You have boyfriend?"), we didn't quite get the message across. Excitedly, he tore off a huge hunk of the cake (at least 1/4 of it!), and contentedly started munching away. At this, Charlotte and I were completely distraught at seeing the beautiful cake mangled in such a manner, and tried (in vain) to explain how a knife was needed. But Ga wasn't perturbed in the least, and blissfully continued to eat every bit of his massive slice before one of the Muay Thai boxers (who speaks some English) came to the cake's rescue. Despite having to witness the awful debauchery of the cake, I'm happy they enjoyed it so much!

"Yeah, it's almost pie time!"

Ta da!

Mango and durian smoothies, anyone?

Several hours later, we returned to the gym to carpool over to the Tha Pae Stadium for our first-ever Muay Thai fight! I don't suppose "stadium" is the best word to describe the area, as it was more of a boxing ring encircled by wooden tables and a bar (of sorts). Nonetheless, it was still quite an experience! The place was packed with foreigners, and all of the people from our gym (Chay Yai Gym) were there, including the trainers and the boxers. In fact, one of the main reasons we went was because John, a Korean American who trains at the gym, and Anne, who lives above us and also trains at the gym, were fighting. Scary! So here's how it worked: There were 5 or so matches the entire night, and each match is made up of five three-minute sections. The matches started with the youngest fighters, who couldn't've been more than 10 years old but had bigger six-packs and biceps than some of the guys on my college swim team. They may have been tiny, but those kids were freakishly ripped! Before each match, all of the competitors would get all greased up with goodness knows what (Vasaline? olive oil? chicken fat?). Whatever it was, it made them all really shiny and very slippery (I imagine). The fights were super intense, though! Those skinny little kids were jumping all around, kicking and punching like there was no tomorrow.

Huah! Action shot!

One of the kids even blacked out (a definite win for the opponent), Anne knocked her opponent out, and John totally obliterated his opponent. Granted, John was a million times his size (since the other guy was this beanpole of a Thai dude), but I was still hoping he wouldn't get as badly beaten as he did. Poor guy! I decided that it's exciting to watch the games, as long as no one sustains any serious injuries. Then it's just too stressful. I was so worried about those poor little kids getting the stuffing knocked out of them. I also decided that I could never do a fight in a million years. Everyone at the gym wants Charlotte and I to do a fight next month, since most people do their first one after a month of training. But I'm absolutely certain one of those tough Thai girls would kill me in the first five seconds. My only chance of winning would be if I could somehow crush her with my (comparatively) massive body weight. I don't think that's a Muay Thai maneuver, though....

John (USA) vs Skinny Thai Dude (Thailand).

Oh, and I forgot to mention that before each match, each player says a prayer at every corner of the ring and does a type of pre-game dance. (Maybe the dances are supposed to bring good luck? They certainly weren't very intimidating!) In between boxing sessions, the coaches poured tons of ice water over their boxers and massage/shake out their muscles. Crazy! According to our fellow boxer friend Sean (who's from New Zealand), each boxer is judged on their technique for their punches, kicks, etc., but the judging is sometimes rigged based on betting. I can't see how the boxers could possibly focus on their fighting, though, since there was this brain-piercing music playing the entire time!

They even had a halftime show (of sorts), in which they blindfolded six guys and just let 'em go at each other for several minutes. I couldn't believe it! The refs would occasionally push one of the guys into a clump of the other boxers, just to cause trouble. Of course, everyone was falling over each other and violently swinging their arms about, hoping they'd actually land a punch on something or someone. Several times, the boxers corned the ref and started going at him, too! Many times, they'd just do a preemptive tap, and if they actually had hit someone, they'd start flailing their arms at them. It was completely ridiculous! I felt really bad for this one super skinny guy, who clearly was not cut out for that sort of thing. He was by far the smallest of the bunch, and he always had his hands over his head and kept trying his best to avoid any sort of human contact. Unfortunately for him, the ref caught on, and kept pushing him into the thick of the fighting.

The Muay Thai "halftime show."

So that's the scoop on Muay Thai, but here's one last parting shot of Charlotte with our 4th graders. They're making quite a bit of progress, too, and I'm hoping they'll be able to read soon.