February 6 - Bangkok, Thailand

Sawatdikup! I've arrived at long last in the land of legends and have no idea where to begin the story. I showed up at the Incheon airport dissheveled and unkempt after an all nighter on the Apgujeong scene with PJ and Jinhee. Unpacked and unprepared, I decided a final hurrah at the new NB dance club was better than getting a few hours sleep before a six hour daytime flight. Of course I didn't plan on getting back to my apartment as late as we did, and had all of 15 minutes to unearth the summer wardrobe, pack my bag and dash to the airport (by bus this time, thank god). Once again I checked in as the final call for the flight rang out over the intercom. Nevertheless, I stumbled my way onto the plane and promptly passed out for the next six hours. The hangover kicked in just as we started doing loops around Don Muang airport, waiting in a long que to land.

As luck would have it in the past, I struck up a conversation with several Koreans, one of them heading to the same neighborhood that I planned on staying in. Oh-Young, an older Korean guy with a strong English talent, had been to Thailand over a dozen times and is a scuba instructor. Suddenly, I had an itinerary for the week, as well as a kind travel mate. We've been bumbling around the Th Khao San neighborhood together, dining on curry this n' that, and even making stops in a Korean guesthouse/bar to see what the others are up to. Walking down a sidestreet, we saw a poorly photocopied advertisement for a public Thai kickboxing (Muy Thai) event, held as a community anti-drug program, so we headed there to scope it out. It was actually a small street near the river with a crowd of several hundred cheering Thais and maybe one or two other foreigners, at most. The kicker was, as we got closer to the ring, found that the contestants were no older than ten, wailing at each other with gloves bigger than their heads. Muy Thai is a way of life for many, and as I was told by Fielding and others in the past, they start training early! As tiny as they were, I still would not want to get in a scrap with these little guys - they matches went on for 3-5 rounds, even after it got bloody. There was a girl on girl matchup too, again, maybe 12 years old. Each fight began with the ceremonial bowing to each corner, then a dance/stretch to the tune of a drum, tinny snake-charmer flute and a chime. As each fought, they danced around the ring, swaying their little arms in the Muy Thai defense position. It was an awesome scene, watching these kids go at it round after round, kick after powerful kick.

Surrounded by so many new sights, I quickly forgot about my headache and lack of sleep. We went back to the Korean guesthouse, where upstairs was a Thai-style bar with the ice bucket combos of Thai rum, cola and M150 (similar to Red Bull). The party started anew, and we followed Young's Thai friend, who was celebrating her 24th birthday, to a live-band bar and had another round of booze buckets. Where Chinese culture shares several dishes at a restaurant, the Thais share a bucket with their mates through plastic straws. Several buckets and a few losing rounds of pool later, we ended up back at the guesthouse at 3am in worse condition than I showed up in Incheon. Hooyah.

Gotta run. To be continued.