Muay Thai!

During a walk down the sweltering Ko Samui main road, Dave saw it. A large red poster announcing the Muay Thai fight night at Chaweng Stadium. The former high school wrestling champ and fight choreographer looked at me with those big brown eyes and I knew it was a done deal. We headed to Chaweng Beach the next night, a much bigger area than Bophut. The streets were alive and all throughout dinner we heard the loudspeakers on the roaming pickups announce the fight: “The BEST of the best! The CHAMP of the champs! Muay Thai at Chaweng Stadium! TONIGHT!” We finished our delicious meal of Pad See Ew, dabbed our faces with the toilet paper napkins on the table and headed over.

The loudspeakers played CCR as the audience slowly found their seats (about 75% tourists and 25% local Thai families). The first fighters walked into the ring. They were about 11 or 12 years old. Muay Thai fighters, or nak muay, often begin rigorous training at a young age. Six pairs of fighters in the various adult weight classes followed the young fighters. At times exciting and at others a little slow (we were there for over 3 hours!), the fight night was an overall educational experience. Muay Thai is known as the “Art of Eight Limbs” because it uses punches, kicks, elbows, and knees thus using eight "points of contact", as opposed to "two points" (fists) in Western boxing and "four points" (hands and feet) used in sport-oriented martial arts (Wikipedia, 2009). Each fight began with a ceremony performed by the fighters called Wai khru ram muay (Thai: ไหว้ครูรำมวย). During this ceremony, the fighters pay respect to their teachers and God before performing a short dance to show off their fighting skills. It seemed to us to be a chance to intimidate the opponent.

When we finished the evening, we walked down the busy street of bars outside filled with scantily-clad women holding “Red Bull + Vodka – 50 Baht!” signs. For some reason, they seemed more interested in selling Red Bull + Vodka to Dave than me. It was clearly time to head back to our peaceful Peace resort… zzzzzz