Muay Thai Boxing & Saxophone pub in Bangkok

We took a 6 & 1/2 hour bus from Sukhothai to Bangkok. Levi met up with his friend Ken (Thai law student) again to go watch some Muay Thai Boxing. Levi & Ken ended up sitting ringside for the fights, which involved some weird negotiating. Ken spoke with the ticket booth lady in Thai for about 5 minutes, then said to Levi in English that they could both sit ringside for a pretty good deal, but Ken had to pretend he was Levi's "driver." The pamphlet for the boxing stadium was pretty humorous because it featured pictures of Steven Seagal & Jean Claude Van-Damme watching matches.

There were several interesting things about Muay Thai boxing. The boxers train at camps & take the camp's name as there own last name. Each match pits blue shorts versus a red shorts. The boxers do a 5 minute stretching/praying routine that involves going to all four corners of the ring. Each fight has five three minute rounds. The first round is very low key, almost like a continuation of the warm-up. Outside the ring there was a 3 man band with the lead guy playing a flute like instrument. The music corresponds to the action in the ring. The music really speeds up in the second round when the ass kicking starts. Muay Thai boxers use their hands, shins, elbows & knees. The second fight was the best between two 20 year-old boxers that weighed about 120 pounds. They were pretty equally matched and were both landing some pretty wicked punches so by the fourth round their faces were bloody. With about 30 seconds left in the fourth round the red boxer attempted a kick & lost his balance. The blue boxer delivered a blow so hard it knocked the red boxer into the ropes, then he collapsed. Blue won by knock-out.

After the match Levi & Ken met Jen at a bar called the Saxophone pub. It featured a live Thai band playing blues. The lead singer was a heavier Thai guy with an amazing voice, when he started singing he sounded like black guy straight out of New Orleans. Ken pointed out that there was a Thai movie star in the bar, the movie star was wearing an American flag tank top so he was hard not to miss. Ken said the movie star was famous for playing villians. At one point in the night, they introduced the Thai movie star & then he sang "Johnny be good."