A Visit to Muang Gorn

Charlotte and I just spent a lovely day and a half in Muang Gorn, the village where Khun Annop (from the office) lives. Khun Annop invited us to join him and Thor for a short visit to his village, since Whitney, a 5th grade teacher from Colorado, was coming to do a home-stay with him and to teach local students for a few hours (just to "see what the culture's like"). Naturally, Charlotte and I were eager to do a bit more exploring, and happily accepted the invitation. After we picked Whitney up from the airport yesterday, we stopped by a local restaurant for some killer kow soi--the curry-ish egg noodle soup that I'm hopelessly addicted to. (I really need to learn how to make some before I leave Thailand, since I'm going to crave some when I get home!)

When we arrived at Khun Annop's house, his wife and some of the village elders greeted us and performed a welcoming ceremony for all of us. (Ooh, and they also gave us each these heavenly-smelling, Thai-style jasmine leis. They smelled sooo good!) A Bai Sri Soo Kwan ceremony is a traditional Isaan ceremony that's conducted on important occasions like welcoming visitors, celebrating marriages, and for deaths. Only the village elders can conduct a Bai Sri, and the special tradition is passed on from one generation to the next. During the ceremony, the women tie strings onto participants' left wrists and the men tie strings onto participants' right wrists. As they tied the strings onto our wrists, the elders prayed for our spirit/soul (Kwun) to bring goodness and protection to us. An older woman also dragged a piece of string across the palms of our hands to remove any bad things from our lives and welcome good things. Many Thais believe that each person has a protective Kwun that looks after them and their family throughout their lifetime. Your Kwun brings happiness, and it must be regained if it is lost (or else there will be serious problems!). For now, we're supposed to keep our string bracelets on for at least three days for good luck. Hopefully, mine will make it longer! It was quite incredible that they shared their ceremony with us, and I felt honored to be a part of it. It was such a cool experience, and all of the village elders were very sweet.

Me, Charlotte, Thor, the village elders, Whitney, and Khun Annop at the start of the ceremony.

The Bai Sri tree that served as the centerpiece was meant to represent  the universe.

Tying the knot.

We then refueled with fresh coconut water (right from freshly picked coconuts from Khun Annop's garden) before going for exploring the village. We pedaled around on these adorable, candy-apple-red vintage bicycles that used to belong to the Japanese postal service. They proved to be an ideal method of touring the area! After stopping over for a quick visit to the local temple (every village has its own temple), we paid a visit to the local handicraft center. The village is know for its carpenters, and I quickly learned why. They made these incredibly intricate wood carvings that had so many detailed layers of woodwork. In one little patch of the wood carving, there would be misty mountains, twisting trees, blossoming flowers, and leaping deer all carefully carved around one another. I can't imagine how you'd go about making something like that out of a huge hunk of wood! And think how patient they must be to gently tap away each little piece of wood! I wish I could bring some of them home (I bet Charlotte would put the wooden dragon in the entryway to our house if she could), but I know they'd get smashed to bits.

Look at all of those wood shavings!

Later that afternoon, we met some of the local children that we'd be teaching the next day. As we played soccer with them, I realized that they are much more advanced than our students (near the elephant camp). I'm not sure why this is, since they don't have any foreign English teachers at their school, but it certainly was much more fun playing with them when I could communicate properly! There were longan trees everywhere, too, so we had fun picking and munching on them throughout the afternoon.

Longans!

Khun Annop and his neighbors went all-out for dinner, though! They made us an incredible feast with lemongrass pork sausage, tasty pork bits, this yummy soup, some sort of hevenly veggie, and the world's best curry. Everything was so yummy, Charlotte and I had a hard time eating it all, although I did manage to get fourfthsies! For dessert, we munched on mangosteens, longans, and this fruit that looks like a small, tan fig but tastes like a grapefruit. A most curious fruit! When I was so stuffed I couldn't even wiggle (to pack the food down), I drafted a quick lesson plan before turning in for the night. Oooh, but I forgot to mention one of the the wonderful luxuries Charlotte and I had at Khun Annop's house--full sized towels! Ever since we've been in Thailand, we've only used these tiny, quick-dry camping towels that are slightly larger than a wash cloth (since we didn't have room to pack big ones and we don't want to buy big ones since they'll never dry in this humidity). I guess I hadn't realized it before, but there's nothing like burying your face in a nice, fluffy towel (especially if you've been deprived of one for a bit).

This morning, we woke up early to visit the village temple, where they allowed us to participate in their daily rituals. Everyone was given plates with incense, flowers, leaves, and puffed rice (of all things!) to donate and place in four larger bowls. Then we sat in the temple during their prayers and chanting, which were sometimes led by the monk. At one point in the ceremony, everyone was given a small bottle of water and a glass. When the monk blessed the water, we bowed three times (nearly touching our heads to the floor) and slowly poured the water into the glasses. We then took the water, and poured it over some of the plants outside the temple. It was a most relaxing ceremony, even if I didn't understand what they were saying! Following the ceremony, we all lined up and gave food donations to the monk (although we had to place them in his bag, since we weren't allowed to hand it directly to him). Most people donated rice, pork rinds, perhaps some fruit, and/or a few baht, although I saw one lady donate a chocolate bar, too! There was this super cute old lady there, who was very eager to tell us all about her tradtions and customs (but in Thai). She was so sweet, and showed us how to rub the gong to make it ring, rather than hitting it with a gong-hitter thingy. While we rubbed the gong, we were supposed to think of a message or wish for Buddha, so that he would hear it. It was pretty cool how loud the gong would ring just from us rubbing it with the palms of our hands.

Khun Annop making his donation.

Rub rub rub!

After a brekky of tea and toast (hooray!), we broke into our English-teaching groups. Since Whitney teaches 5th graders in the US, she took the youngest kids while Charlotte and Thor taught two high school students. Meanwhile, I worked with three adults from the village who wanted to work on their speaking skills. I was quite impressed by how much they already knew, and they were worked very hard for our 3.5-4 hours of lessons. They even tried teaching me the Thai translation for some of the words I introduced, but I didn't retain any of them! After a lunch of pork fried rice and pig's blood noodle soup (that tasted surprisingly normal, despite my previous misgivings), we strolled through the neighborhood, pointing out things in English and asking our students simple questions. I enjoyed talking to them and trying to pick up Thai words and phrases. As we strolled about, the villagers and Thor showed us all the incredible fruits and veggies that grow there. Honestly, I don't see how you'd ever need to buy produce if you lived in a village like that, since there's so much! On our walk, we encountered: green papaya, mangoes, guavas (that were hard as a rock and tasted pretty funky....I'm pretty sure they weren't ripe!), pomegranates, lemons, limes, pommellos, longans (of course! Pretty much every other tree was a longan tree), bananas, custard apples, dragon-fruit, Thai basil, two types of beans, and a number of other mystery herbs/fruit/veg. That's quite a mix, I'd say! And the nice thing was, we had a chance to sample many of the tropical fruits. One of the villagers even gave us a pommello to take home! (It's about the size of my head, so it should make for a nice brekky tomorrow for Charlotte and I.)

Dragon-fruit!

Mysterious thingamabob.

Enormous pommello!

Sour/bitter thingy.

Charlotte and Pai, one of her students.

Later this afternoon, we chatted with some of the villagers, one of whom was this hysterical Thai man, who is a retired teacher from the local school. He kept giggling at everything, which I found quite entertaining, since he had a very goofy laugh to begin with. When he found our Thai-English phrasebook, he flipped through it, looking for words and erupting in little fits of laughter every so often. He'd repeat many of the things we'd say (a good way to practice his English, I suppose!), but his glass of wine certainly didn't help with his giggling! Finally, after pouring over our phrasebook for quite some time, he triumphantly looked up, and with a gleeful laugh pointed to the phrase, "What a babe!" Everyone at the table busted out laughing, especially the Thai man. He thought it was the funniest thing! Haha!

Pai, Charlotte, funny Thai villager, and Thor.

After a day and a half of exploring, teaching, and eating, it was time to bid farewell to the Muang Gorn village and return to Chiang Mai.

Buddha Day and More!

Khun Well with the candle-tea-ramen package for the monks. Note how the gold cellophane matches their robes!

Hello, all! Just wanted to do a quick post to fill you in on our week. Friday was Buddha Day, where everyone goes to the temple to pray and donate (food items, candles, etc.) to the monks. Apparently, the monks have to stay at the temple for three months following Buddha Day. Back in the olden days, monks would trample rice paddies while walking to their temples. So, they decided they must stay in the temples to allow the rice to grow properly. At least that's part of the holiday, anyways! We went to our neighborhood temple with everyone from the office, and donated two giant candles and a food package (since the monks only live off of donations during this period). The head monk at the temple was very sweet, but he had this crazy chihuahua that kept yapping at us every few seconds. She was really quite irritating, and wouldn't stop prancing about with her little pink bell jingling the entire time. The worst part was, though, was she ran up onto a cushy pillow that was situated atop a Buddhist alter during the monk's prayer. I just about died I was laughing so hard! It looked as if everyone in the temple was praying to that stupid chihuahua, which I'm convinced was posing for her adoring fans. Meanwhile, the monk was still chanting away with Charlotte and I just about rolling around on the floor in silent laughter in the back of the temple. We also found this really cool (and humungous) stag beetle at the temple. Check out those pincers!

All hail stag god!

Last night, we went to see the new Harry Potter movie with Michelle and Khun Tin from the office and Sean from Muay Thai. Charlotte and I were of course very excited, and enjoyed checking out the Thai movie theater. It was quite civilized, since we could pick our seats when we purchased the tickets. That meant no waiting for hours in line just to get into the movie! In many other ways, it was pretty similar to any other movie theater, except that they played the national anthem at the start and  everyone had to stand up respectfully. (On a side note, it truly is incredible how respected and well-loved the king is. Pictures of him are everywhere, including on giant billboards and in all of the classrooms at the school. The students all bow to him whenever they leave the room.) Strangely enough, the theater wasn't even crowded even though it was opening night! And I only saw two or so people dressed up in Harry Potter regalia. Incredible!

Oooh, and we have some exciting news! We found a new favorite restaurant!! We've known about it for quite some time now, since we always see it on our way to the restaurant that has the world's best Thai iced tea and kow soi. It's where all of the Muay Thai people go after practice, but Charlotte and I just tried it for the first time today. And what a find! There's only one table there, but the lady who runs it is super cute, very friendly, and can't get over how much we eat. (This seems like a common reaction among Thais that we've met.) We went there for both lunch and dinner today, and pigged out both times. At first, she laughed when we ordered our third entrée but then seemed somewhat appalled when we ordered our fourth. I had a batch of yummy squid fried rice, while Charlotte had squid stir fried with Thai basil. Yumm! For dessert, we had the world's best banana pancake. It must've been at least 1.5 inches thick, and we drenched it in golden honey. I do believe this will be a new addition to our Thai diets. :)

Hooray for tasty food!

Yummy squid fried rice!

Aside from our restraunt discovery, we had a pretty lazy day today. We lounged about in between our Muay Thai lessons, playing pictionary and generally just relaxing. I managed to take some pics of Chay Yai gym though! Hooray! I felt bad that I haven't taken any more, since we go there just about every day, so I made an effort today and have some to share with you. Hopfully, there'll be more to come, as I only managed to get A in the picture. I'll try to get some with everyone next time! For now, you can see what the homey gym and super-intense-but-really-sweet A look like. Oh, and here's a picture of the roosters, too! The Muay Thai guys LOVE their roosters, and are always cleaning them and brushing their feathers after lessons. They use them for cock fights, which I don't really agree with. I haven't actually seen them fighting, but everyone always says they fight in the afternoons. I would feel bad for the roosters, but they get paid more than the Muay Thai fighters do, and they are treated like royalty. Well, except when A picks his rooster up by the tail....Haha! Some of the old Thai guys even talk about the roosters having "good form" and suchlike. It's quite funny!

Our stinky but beloved gym.

Me and A!

Until next time!

A Much Needed Update!

Man, do I have a lot of catching up to do!  Olivia has been doing all of the postings lately, because I always fall asleep too early.  So I better get started!  This past week has been pretty jammed packed with activities.  In fact, I'd say one of the busiest since we've been here! Olivia's friend, Natasha, came to visit for the weekend.  Man! Does that girl have some energy! She reminds me of a Jack Russell Terrier.  Not the fat lazy ones like Riley, but the scrappy, crazy ones that run around nonstop all day.  But, before I get into our jam-packed weekend, I think I should first describe the progress I'm making in my future career as an explorer!  That's right! To all of you that don't think I'd make a good explorer...get this.  I got to teach a survivor course! Shane (our boss) runs these team building activities for big businesses.  So Olivia and I drove out into the jungle, where we got a crash course on how to build a fire, make a stretcher, a lean-to, bamboo pots (to boil water), chopsticks, and other such essentials.  This was all explained via demonstration by some Thai guys wearing military uniforms.  I don't know how they all didn't collapse from a heat stroke.  I was drenched in sweat, even though I was wearing a tank-top and running shorts (gasp! the horrors of my immodesty).  But I didn't even see a glimmer of sweat on these guys!  Constantly being the grossest person around (except for Olivia...I think she might even trump me) is really quite frustrating.  Hahaha!!  After our crash course, we met up with a bunch of people from Gore-Tex (you know, the waterproof stuff everyone in Seattle wears).  Sixty-two people, actually.  They were from all over the world.  We had Americans, Chinese, German.  You name it.  Anyway, we split 'em up, in roughly six groups of 10.  Each team had to complete the survival skills assigned in the most efficient and accurate manner.  Our job: instruct them in proper survival skills! It was great!  You would be AMAZED at the ignorance of some of these people! Especially the Chinese ones!  It was unbelievable! I don"t claim to be an expert or anything...but these people were just sad.  They must live under a rock or something.  For example, they were trying to start a fire, but instead of starting with tinder, they just tried to light a log on fire! Sigh.  Well, either way, I had a blast and think all of the people enrolled in the course did too.  Sadly, we didn't get any pics of us in action, so you'll just have to picture us making bamboo utensils and banana leaf rooftops.

The next day Natasha came for a visit.  She is interning in Singapore for the summer, so a quick trip to Thailand was manageable.  We took a cab driven by the respectable Mr. O, a very charming young man, who unfortunately I couldn't communicate well with because he didn't speak much English...and I speak virtually no Thai.  Natasha's flight arrived at 11:20 pm on Friday night, so that didn't leave much time for exploring. But we made up for it on Saturday.  I got up early, and went to Muay Thai, while Olivia and Natasha had some oh-so-delicious Smile Coffee drinks.  After that we headed into town.  Natasha insisted we try this thing called a fish spa.  It was SOOOOO fun!  It's a small room filled with couches and comfy chairs.  Underneath the couches are these fish tanks.  You put your feet in them (but only after someone washed your feet.  I super didn't like that part!  But, when I tried to wash them myself the little Thai lady looked very offended).  Anyway, as soon as you put your feet in the tank a bajillion fish latch onto them and start sucking away! It tickles like crazy! Olivia and I were rolling around in fits of hysterical laughter for the first 2 minutes.  But after that we settled down a bit.  Well, the result?!  Super soft, shiny feet! Sounds weird, I know...but definitely worth it. 

Tons of little fish nibbling away at my feet!

A very happy Fish Spa customer.

Natasha had a great idea!

Mango cheesecake from Love at First Bite.

Hooray for cake and pie!

Next we wanted to show Natasha some of the wats.  Naturally, Olivia and I got lost, and we ended up walking around in circles (actually circles) for the next hour. I think Natasha was getting frustrated by our incompetence, so she finally asked someone (a very good idea) for directions.  Hahaha! Turns out that we had walked right by it! Gahh!  Oh well.  Then we went to the night market.  Nothing new happened here, so I won't go into the deets.  Sunday was super duper fun too.  We went zip-lining through the jungle! 

Wheeeee!

Charlotte, ready for zip-lining action.

Charlotte and Natasha with Cash, one of our crazy guides, in the background.

Good advice.

Up in the treetops!

The view from midway up our waterfall hike.

Bottoms up!

Since we don't know the name of our apartment, we just told the company pick us up at Chay Yai Gym (that's where we train).  Well, I'm sad to say the people that were in our group were really lame.  It was this family from Holland.  Not a single one laughed, or screamed, or smiled the whole trip.  Despite the valiant efforts of our guide, Cash.  He was SOOOO funny, and had even more energy than Natasha!  Every now and then, he'd push against the ziplining wire to bounce us as we zipped through the treetops. We had so much fun, zooming along from platform to platform. And as we were zipping through the jungle on the world's largest zip-line we managed to see a family of gibbons with a mom, dad, and baby gibbon! 

Cute baby gibbon with it's mama!

That made the trip worth while.  Lunch was provided too! And it was quite tasty.  There was this delicious curry.  Olivia and I were the only people that asked for seconds...and when we asked for thirds the little Thai lady laughed, and brought out an entire new bowl of rice and curry for just the two of us! Naturally we felt obliged to eat it all..so we did.  That night we caught a Song Tao (the little bus/taxi combs) to the Sunday market where we met up with Khun Tin and Michelle (our friends from the office).  As usual I ate too much and went to bed feeling like a bloated toad.  Well, I realize this is getting to be a lot of info...but I'm not quite done yet, so I'll carry on. 

Monday night was the much anticipated fight between our friend Sean (the New Zealand guy) and some ridiculously jacked Thai dude.  So fights should be arranged by size.  Well, we hitched a ride to the stadium in the back of the guys' from the gym's pick-up truck.  We get to the stadium, and the guy that Sean has to fight is short all right (just like Sean) but he must outweigh him by 30 pounds!  Sean is definitely in good shape, but he's small...and not super ripped.  This Thai guy he's facing is like Gimli.  Short, stocky, and had bicepts about as big around as a coconut! Not a fair fight!!! I was so worried for Sean.  But he kept his cool.  The first round went okay, but you could tell every single punch or kick that Thai-Gimli landed hurt like hell.  At the very beginning of the second round Thai-Gimli kicked Sean super hard on the side of the knee.  Sean went down hard.  He looked like he was in so much pain.  He kept trying to get up so he could finish the round...but he couldn't.  It was really hard to watch, because I know that the fight meant a lot to him...cause he trains so hard.  I guess it'd be like getting to conference, and getting DQed, with a broken knee on top of it all.  I felt really bad for Sean.  He cried the whole ride back to the gym. Not from pain (I don't think), but cause he was so disappointed.  Poor Sean.  On the upside, Olivia and I are getting much better at sparring! The guys at the gym want us to fight....but after the several knock-outs, the dislocated shoulder, and now Sean....I'm pretty sure I won't be doing any actual fights any time soon!     

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.