Adventures in Thailand 3

Damian Mavis

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So I get off the sky train and walk up to the motorcycle taxi guys like I do whenever I go home, and hop on the back of this dudes Harley... don't know why this particular taxi guy drives a kick *** Harley but he does and I prepare to enjoy the ride. Most motorcycle taxi guys drive not so kick *** motorscouters, the motorscouters can weave in and out of traffic so are always the smartest way to go during rush hour... which in Bangkok is almost all the time! heh. But he isn't going through traffic to get to my apartment, I'm just too lazy to walk the long blocks and don't mind paying 0.50 Canadian to save myself some time. So off we go and we don't go very far down the street before we come up to some traffic! There is never any traffic on this street so I'm very curious and my chauffeur says "moto-cy acciden" (motorcycle accident). So I'm scanning the crowd and realise they are all standing around a nice lump on the street that they covered in newspaper... we drove not more than a foot away from it as we slowly went by, I had never been that close to a freshly dead person before and it freaked me out that I wasn't effected.... In Canada I would feel something but here I just look at the body lump and think "that might be me someday". Life is way cheaper here than back home and I'm starting to think that way too, kind of scary the way a place changes you.

Not more than a week later I'm booting down a street in Pattaya on my rented motorscouter and I foolishly decide to pass a taxi truck (Song Tao) on the outside and speed up as I do so... I must have been going 60km/h when another Falang (foreigner) with his Thai girlfriend on the back decides to cut right across the lane without looking to turn right, he stops abruptly directly in front of me and everything just slows right down... I felt like I had all day to decide what I was going to do but only had a couple of limitted choices. I was thinking very calmly to myself, "ok, I'm going to lean my shoulder to the left and swerve to hit the back of his motorcylcle so I don't mangle his leg and when I hit I'll let myself go with the flow of energy and try to roll." And that is exactly what I did, after 14 years of martial arts training this is probably the single best use of my skills ever. At impact I flew through the air over the handle bars already starting my roll and hit the ground hard but rolled right out of it and into fighting stance haha. It happened so fast it was like a blink. One second I'm thinking in slow mo, the next I'm standing 15 feet away from our bikes looking ready for an invisible enemy. I didn't feel a thing. All I can hear is about 40 bar girls laughing and pointing at me from the sidewalk as I walk over to check on the falang and his girl. They are totally fine, they just plopped over on their side with little more than a scratch because I only hit the back wheel of the bike and sent my energy over the handle bars. Police just happen to be standing right there with all the laughing bar girls, they see we are ok and ask us if we have settled it, we both agree there is nothing to settle, we were both at fault. I was definately going way to fast and trying to pass on the outside and he didn't look before cutting across the lane. If I had hit a Thai guy it would have been a totally different ball game and I would have had to fork over some money, lucky me. I walk my twisted bike over to the bar on the side and all the girls are all laughing still until I take my helmet off, then they all go dead quiet, I hear a couple say in thai, "handsome man". I remember thinking "ya, don't laugh at the handsome man!" Talk about humiliating having a large group of people laugh at your near death experience and no one even trying to help you, pretty lame feeling. It cost me $70 Canadian to fix up the bike, I was lucky, I was able to twist the front wheel back into place and only had to get the lights and mirrors and scratches fixed.

I decided to take my safety a tad bit more seriously after that, I don't do stupid manuevers anymore. Thankgod for my training, that roll really saved my butt.

Damian Mavis
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R

RCastillo

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Gee, after an adventure like that, if I had any juice, I woulda promoted ya! :asian:

Question here, Just how much did you age after that experience? I myself felt tired, and sore after reading about it. I also woulda walked over to them Bar Girls for some TLC! :drinkbeer
 

tshadowchaser

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Glad you didn't get hurt. Verry glad you training paid off in a situation that was not a fight. Thats what its all about anyways, learning to live and haveing your studies become pat of your life.
 

Touch Of Death

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Hey, keep them stories commin". I enjoy hearing them as well. My step father was stationed there during the vietnam war(think secret bombing raids over cambodia). He has some stories to tell that are complete with police chases, joy riding in Cambodia by accident, dead men in the aquifer, venomous snakes, and illicit drug use.(where once they were all at the top of a bldg. and one guy was so stoned he fell off, they all ran down to find there dead freind but he was already gone. It turns out that he got right back up, and was calling to them from the top of the bldg while they were searching for his corpse)
Sean
 

Rick Wade

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Hey, Damian Mavis I can't remember if it is in Phuket or Pattaya but there was this Bar there called Marlene’s where you could fight the Thai boxers.. Did you do that? If any of you what to hear that nightmare I will tell it. However that is on request only.

Thanks
 

Touch Of Death

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Rick Wade said:
Hey, Damian Mavis I can't remember if it is in Phuket or Pattaya but there was this Bar there called Marlene’s where you could fight the Thai boxers.. Did you do that? If any of you what to hear that nightmare I will tell it. However that is on request only.

Thanks
Ok, Ima requestin'. What happened.
Sean (www.iemat.com)
 

Rick Wade

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Alright here goes.

I was there in Phuket and Pattaya. It is kind of a blur as to which city this happened in but no matter. I was in the Navy and out with a bunch of guys. All of the married guys didn’t want to go to the girly bars so we heard about this bar where there was real Thai fighting. I was the ring leader and here we go (to watch). A couple of the guys knew that I took Martial Arts. We saw a couple of fights and the guys proceeded to get drunk and started to egg me on. You could pay to go in there and get the living crap kicked out of you. (Not very smart). So actually thinking about this I made a conscious decision not to drink (hind sight I should have drank). I watched two other foreigners get in there the living crap kicked out of them. I went and talked to the manager of the place and he said it was three rounds. The other fighter wouldn’t do anything to you that you didn’t do to him first. After that he said under no circumstances should I kick my opponent. Weighing out all of this I decided to fight. They get me dressed in Thai boxer shorts and in the ring I go. I stand about 6’0” and I am towering over this guy. First round I am boxing him keeping my guard a little lower to cover my mid region. First round went OK. Second round went OK but I was starting to get winded; ok who am I kidding I was plain ole’ out of shape. Third round I started thinking I am a lot bigger than this guy I will wait until midway through the round and then I will start kicking him to keep him off of me (huge mistake). I kicked him with about 60 second letting the third round. You would of thought that I slapped his mother and raped his sister. This guy wailed on me. Their shins are a lot tougher than my thighs. I was actually standing at the end but I don’t know how I really don’t remember the end of the fight. The crowd gave me a huge applause just for lasting the whole fight something no other foreigner had done that night. As I watch this on video for old times sake I have to think What the heck possessed me to do that? I went back the next night and they said had I come back for more? I said H#!! no. It turns out all of the locals started betting whether I could last the whole time that night.

Thanks

Please don’t laugh at me to hard. I was young dumb and well you know the rest.

Respectfully
 

Touch Of Death

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Rick Wade said:
Alright here goes.

I was there in Phuket and Pattaya. It is kind of a blur as to which city this happened in but no matter. I was in the Navy and out with a bunch of guys. All of the married guys didn’t want to go to the girly bars so we heard about this bar where there was real Thai fighting. I was the ring leader and here we go (to watch). A couple of the guys knew that I took Martial Arts. We saw a couple of fights and the guys proceeded to get drunk and started to egg me on. You could pay to go in there and get the living crap kicked out of you. (Not very smart). So actually thinking about this I made a conscious decision not to drink (hind sight I should have drank). I watched two other foreigners get in there the living crap kicked out of them. I went and talked to the manager of the place and he said it was three rounds. The other fighter wouldn’t do anything to you that you didn’t do to him first. After that he said under no circumstances should I kick my opponent. Weighing out all of this I decided to fight. They get me dressed in Thai boxer shorts and in the ring I go. I stand about 6’0” and I am towering over this guy. First round I am boxing him keeping my guard a little lower to cover my mid region. First round went OK. Second round went OK but I was starting to get winded; ok who am I kidding I was plain ole’ out of shape. Third round I started thinking I am a lot bigger than this guy I will wait until midway through the round and then I will start kicking him to keep him off of me (huge mistake). I kicked him with about 60 second letting the third round. You would of thought that I slapped his mother and raped his sister. This guy wailed on me. Their shins are a lot tougher than my thighs. I was actually standing at the end but I don’t know how I really don’t remember the end of the fight. The crowd gave me a huge applause just for lasting the whole fight something no other foreigner had done that night. As I watch this on video for old times sake I have to think What the heck possessed me to do that? I went back the next night and they said had I come back for more? I said H#!! no. It turns out all of the locals started betting whether I could last the whole time that night.

Thanks

Please don’t laugh at me to hard. I was young dumb and well you know the rest.

Respectfully
They did warn you not to kick... Thanks for the story. :asian:
Sean (www.iemat.com)
 
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Damian Mavis

Damian Mavis

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Heh, Rick Wade, not sure if Marlenes is in Pattaya but they have something similar. There is a bar you can walk in and fight, if you suck they just mess around with you but if you can fight a bit they will knock you around at the least and maybe hurt you. But it's for tourists so it's not too risky.

There is another bar (best friend bar) that I fought out of but that fight was prearranged, it was not for anyone to walk in, just for fighters to fight the local fighters. My opponent sucked bum though.... I dropped him in the second round with jumping spinning side kick.

Damian Mavis
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