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muay thai

Muay Thai in Chiang Mai

Yup, my blog’s entire home page is now practically filled with posts about Thai boxing. So I thought I’d continue in that vein. Not that you care. You’re still drooling over the naked pictures of Sirimongkol.

When you are in Chiang Mai with a group of friends with a high testosterone count thanks to the two dykes in your party, a night out at one of the local Muay Thai venues is just the thing. At least that was my proposal for the night. Helena wasn’t too jazzed about the idea until I told her the stadium was actually a bar; shots of Patron were enough to stir her interest. Chris wasn’t too hep on the idea either, but quickly came around when I mentioned the young, almost naked hunks who’d be doing battle in the ring. He’d been going through flesh withdrawals since we hit town, missing the gay gogo bars of Bangkok and not willing to man up enough to try Chiang Mai’s bar scene on his own. Noom, my bar boy friend and current love of my life, was a different story. Muay Thai? Hell, yes! Obstinately straight, his presence topped off the testosterone level, and with the one-two punch combo of a Thai cultural event and a chance to gamble, he was raring to go.

Seeing a Muay Thai event in Chiang Mai is a hard to miss opportunity for touri. Every time you pass through the Thapae Gate, a local will hand you a flyer for that evening’s card. Nightly, there’s always at least one fight scheduled between a Thai and a white boy. Not because the farang has any chance of winning, but it’s a sure draw for his countrymen, a chance for locals to score not only in the ring but in the cash register too. And there’s always a fight scheduled between two women. Not because women are allowed in real muay thai fights, they aren’t. But straight guys get all hard over the idea of a bitch fight, so, as always, the locals after a buck are more than willing to oblige.

muay thai

Embraceable you.

There are two main venues for the touri version of muay thai in Chiang Mai. Both are called stadiums, both are actually bars. One is down the street from the Thapae Gate. The other a block or two up Loi Kroh Road from Chiang Mai’s famous Night Bazaar. We headed to the former, it being close to our hotel. Tickets to the event, which means the price of a drink, are two tiered: cheap seats fill most of the floor, those ringside run a bit more. Since Chris was with us and well known for never losing a fight over a dollar, we went cheap. Until Noom reminded us we were not only in Thailand, but with a Thai. He moved us ringside after the first round of drinks. The only reaction to our grabbing the better seats was a gracious wai given by the barmaid who took our next drink order.

To experience a quintessential Thai kickboxing match, only watching the fight is not enough; hot bodied locals, gloves, and a ring is but part of the show. You need to gamble, too. Most farang are smart enough not to get in the ring and go one-on-one with a Thai. Chris was not smart enough to not go one-on-one with a Thai outside the ring and foolishly agreed to a wager with Noom. Noom giggled at his folly, leaning over and whispering to me in delight, “It not real!”

I love to see my boy’s face bathed in the glow of avarice.

I’d seen enough muay thai fights in Patpong to know touri fights are fixed. But how Noom knew which fighter would win each match was beyond me. His reply to my asking, “’Cuz I Thai,” while typical, failed to adequately address the question. But didn’t fail to score a knock out against Chris’ wallet. The fighters in the ring may go home bruised and battered, but the loss to Chris was of a far more disastrous nature: cash. He tried to get out of paying up, claiming it was a friendly bet, nor more real than the match. I felt Noom tense up; face, honor, integrity, and fairness on the line. So was 100 baht. Chris, having just witnessed the damage a Thai can inflect on another human being, wisely decided his life was worth more than $3 and paid up. Not bloodied enough, he then unwisely agreed to double-down on the next match.

Chris loses many bets

Pay Up!

Meanwhile, Helena was risking death and disfigurement on her own. Not willing to wait for the waitress to make her rounds, she’d bellied up to the closest bar to grab some more drinks. There are about a half a dozen bars spread around the perimeter of the ‘stadium’. Turns out whichever seat you occupy belongs to a specific bar as does whatever money you spend on libations. She’d hit the wrong bar and was quickly being schooled in the rules of the game. Smarter than Chris, she knew better than to take on a local. That ordering another round of shots smoothed things over was but a happy bonus.

The card that night featured five bouts. We’d missed the opening act, the bitch fight. No big loss. We’d arrived during the second bout, the one trumpeting a Canadian boxer. He went down by the time we sat down. Perhaps he should have stuck to hockey. That left three fights, and six young Thai guys with tight bodies, rippling muscles casting shadows across their dusky skin as they danced around the ring, and satin shorts that did little to disguise what they covered, especially as they became transparent with sweat as each bout went on.

Who won may have been predetermined, what happened up to that point seemed to be anyone’s call. The fighters traded some vicious blows, often using hard elbows to inflict damage on their opponent. As many kicks were thrown as punches, blocking those looked as painful as letting them land. The fights may have not been real, but the fighting was. Ringside, up-close and personal, you not only get a unobstructed view of the match, but by the second round sweat flying off the boxers has an unobstructed path to you. Dee cringed. Chris licked his lips. Noom laughed. Helena ordered yet another shot.

Ouch!

Um, I think that one really hurt!

So getting the gang to agree to go see the fights, I’d told a little white lie to Chris, possibly suggesting he’d be able to buy one of the boxers for the night. He wasn’t much of a fight fan, but his eyes were glued on the pugilists sizing each up, not for their fighting skills but with an eye to their bedroom skills. With an 0-2 record betting with Noom, when the third bout started up and Noom tried to make another 100 baht off Chris, he wisely passed. Not because he didn’t want to try and win some of his money back and was smart enough to know that wouldn’t happen, but rather he wanted to have enough left in his wallet to take a muay thai boxer back to his room with him and was not smart enough to know that wouldn’t happen either. Noom set him straight. And won another 100 baht from Chris.

Chris settled instead for buying a pair of muay thai boxer trunks without a boy in them; an odd souvenir for Chris, but then he’d displayed a taste for the strange with other trinkets he’d bought on the trip. End of the fight, end of the night, we staggered back to the hotel; Dee and I laden with an inebriated Helena strung between us, Noom laden with a wallet full of Chris’ cash. But Chris is a champ and though he’d be disappointingly only battling with his own hands that night, quickly caught onto what I was up to when I asked if I could borrow his newly purchased trunks for the night. Back in our room. Noom chalked it up to yet another example of how strange farang can be. But he’s always willing to make me happy. The fight was brief, the trunks quickly discarded, and this time I was the one who knew who the winner would be.

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