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Day 40

It was a short flight to Singapore and then a much longer flight to Germany. I had a few hundred baht leftover so I handed the teller at the currency exchange a stack and asked how many euro I could get. She shrugged and said "not much". I asked if it was enough for something at the coffee shop and she said probably and handed me 5 euro and some change. The meals and movie selections were all different on this flight and I was still impressed with Singapore Air. I watched some of The Office, Scrubs, Arrested Development and also saw X-men 3 (the diplomat turned fighter in The Beast reminded me of Cro Cop), Davinci Code, Godfather II and a little of Nacho Libre. We touched down a little late at 11:00 am at JFK and I was pretty sure I was going to miss my 1:00 pm flight from LaGuardia. Somehow I was able to get my bags, get through customs, get a taxi, get to LGA, get my bags checked in, get through security and to my terminal by a little after 12. I got to Atlanta with about an hour and a half to kill so I walked around a little bit and read some magazines in the bookstores. I realized it had been about 11 hours since I'd eaten so I stopped at Moe's and got a big burrito. They were playing Ray Charles and I was having a pretty decent time when they paged me to the gate my flight was departing from. The terminal was empty when I got there and I was smiling when I walked up to the desk. She said "Are you Nicholas Thomas?" I just kept smiling and winked at her. She said "Honey get on this plane so we can get out of here - we're just waiting on you!" The front half of the plane (where my seat was) was pretty full. However the back half of the plane was basically empty so I took a row to myself near the back. As we took off Willy Nelson's XM radio station was playing Lorretta, Waylon and Hank Jr. and I was almost home.

So thats it, my family picked me up and we ate at Los Lupes and its back to reality.

There were a few stories I forgot to tell:

One night I was walking into Greenwich Village from Tribeca as the sun was setting and I heard organ music and church bells. The music echoed off the walls and throughout the neighborhood and I followed the sound to find a church having an evening service.

I forgot to mention the time I stopped at an internet cafe and they weren't open but they said I could go ahead and come in. The owner was farang and his daughter kept checking on me and eventually she said she was going to sleep but I could pay her dad when I left. I found him in a room that looked like it could be in NORAD. He sat at a desk in a middle of the room facing a wall with three enormous hi-def flat screen computer monitors with scrolling stock information on them. There were dozens of other flatscreens that covered every wall in the room except the one behind him. It was probably 10 or 11 at night and I'm not even sure which markets he was trading in. As Gordon Gekko said, the market never sleeps.

I forgot to mention the time I went to visit Wat Chalong (the temple) at night, and got chased out by a pack of dogs.

One morning I put on my shoes and I had a frog in each one. Both lived. While I was packing up I noticed another frog amidst my clothes, inside my bag. That could have been a problem at customs.

Day 39

I walked over to the camp and talked to some people that were doing the morning training. I setup a time with Chanman to do my last private for late on in the afternoon. From there I went to the supermarket to return some shoes I had bought that were in two different sizes, and then I went back to hell in Patong for some specific items I had in mind for gifts. I was shopping in Patong almost all day which was more of a beating than anything at the camp. I got a ticket for going the wrong way down Bangla road which is closed off at night and has little traffic and no indication that its a one way street in the daytime. If I was going fast enough sometimes I would blow past the police checkpoints on the roads but this cop jumped right in front of me and I thought all he wanted was to check my license so I stopped. Turned out he took my license and gave me a ticket that I had to go find the police station to pay and then bring him back the receipt to get the license back. I told him I was about to miss my flight and tried to pay him off but he wouldn't take it. There was a little wait at the police station and then I had to go find this cop again so I ended up being late for the private. With no sleep and shopping all day I was wiped out but I slammed an energy drink and started jumping rope. We mostly sparred and it was mostly a beating and I was mostly happy about that. I was getting used to blocking my head properly - especially when he would do the straight blasts like Vitor Belfort did vs. Wanderlei Silva. My shoulder and elbow were feeling better and the pushups between rounds were alot easier. I had to finish with the usual 200 knees and this time 200 situps with a 17lb medicine ball. Afternoon training was starting by the end and I said my goodbyes and went to pack. The taxi came to pick me up and we passed a couple accidents on the way to the airport due to heavy rain. My lights had flickered a couple times while packing and I was a little worried about having to pack in the dark. I gave the airline my confirmation number and checked in my bag and she said one was too heavy so I would have to pay extra. So I had to go to a different part of the airport and pay, get a slip and then come back after I had paid. When I came back she gave me my ticket to Singapore and luckily I asked how I was getting to NYC from Singapore and turns out she had screwed up royally and didn't even know I was going to NYC. Three or four other employees had to come help sort it out and I ended up not having to pay extra for the luggage but they did make me rearrange some stuff between bags b/c of the weights. Finally I was done with the airline but it turned out I had overstayed my visa by 3 days and not 1 like I thought. I ended up having to pay 500 baht per day fine plus 500 baht airport tax. So I had to go find an atm and then pay the airport at one place and then pay the rest at a different place and sign a bunch of papers that I had no idea what they meant. When I got to customs I had to wait at a counter and stand behind a line and get my picture taken just like when I first entered the country. The people behind the counter spent a good five minutes looking between me and the computer screen and I finally asked what was going on. They let me come behind the counter and I stared laughing out loud when I saw the screen. They were looking at the picture of me just now and the picture that had been taken when I first entered the country. When I arrived I had alot of hair and a goatee and now I was clean shaven with a Travis Bickle mohawk and they were trying to decide if it was the same person. My passport picture looked completely different too so that didn't help things. I showed them that I had the same pair of sunglasses hanging on my shirt in both pics and then they let me through. Finally I was allowed to go through security and board my flight. I related this fairly quickly compared to how it really felt going through it. In reality it was an arduous, confusing and depleting process. I was the last person to board but right before I got on the plane there was another bag check. The guards did not share my sense of urgency. I was helping one open my laptop bag when I looked up and two of the guards had taken one boxing glove each and were laughing and hitting each other in the face. I cracked up and pictured them doing this at JFK. The one checking my laptop said he had used to fight in Patong Stadium when he was a kid. I was the last person on the flight and we took off.

Day 38

I woke up and remembered that the Penn vs. Hughes fight was about to happen in America and I went to the internet cafe to get the results. I ended up getting live results for the fight I just had to keep refreshing the page and it would update what was happening in the fight. "Penn takes Hughes back" "Penn working for rear naked choke" "Penn now has triangle from the back" "Fight almost over" and thats all it said for like 5 minutes. I felt sick. Hughes went on to win and I went to get some breakfast. At the Anchor Inn I met up with Freddie from San Antonio, Piers from Australia, Matt and Kristoffer from Sweden and told them the fight results. As we were leaving J.D. from Atlanta showed up so I stayed to talk to him. His old friends and roomates Rory Singer and Forrest Griffin are in the UFC now. Caleb, Chris and Guy from Wisconsin came in and we all ate and talked and I ended up being at the Anchor like 4 hours. We all left and I went to Kata to do some shopping. On the way back to the gym I stopped at the open air market by the camp, which is open most days of the week but busier on Sundays. I picked up some dinner there and ate in the bungalow. After that I went into Patong and passed a big accident in the mountains on the way there. It was a flatbed truck that looked like his brakes went out and he had gone offroad on a downhill and driven up the side of the hill and toppled over. The cargo he was carrying was all over the place. Shopping in Patong was good for souvenir shopping... but it would pretty much be the lowest level of hell for me. The shop owners are relentless trying to get you into their shops and if you just look at something for too long or ask about the price of something they assume you want it. So if you start to walk away they assume you just want to haggle so they start getting loud and aggressive asking you what price you want to pay and sometimes pretty much begging you to stay in the shop. I remembered when I was walking around Patong for the first time, how friendly I was with the shop owners and the suit guys. By the end of this night of shopping I was barely acknowledging them. I was shopping in Patong until after midnight and this was my last night on the island and I did not sleep a wink. Ended up just lying in bed listening to music all night and just got of bed when I saw the sun coming up.

Day 37

It started to dawn on me how little time I had left on the island earlier in the week and I decided to take the weekend off from training and see some more of the island. On my map I saw a little island with a road from my island going to it, so I thought I'd go check it out. I had to go up through Phuket Town to get there and I got lost there forever. Its basically like a 3rd world version of Chinatown in NYC. Lots of buildings and congested traffic and honking. I got out of Phuket Town but then I got lost in some slums closer to the water. They were mostly bordered by these canals with semi standing water and old rat infested boats rotting in them. I finally found the road out to the island and went to explore a bit. It seemed mostly residential and I followed some of the roads around the coast. Off the side of one road was a road with what looked to be an unmanned guardshack and enough room between barriers to fit my bike through, so I decided to pursue it. It ended up going right to the top of one of the tallest hills on this little island. The incline of the road was really steep and I was glad my bike was able to make it up. The view was really nice with almost 360 degree of nothing but ocean and islands. I walked around in the woods up there for awhile, and then I sat for a long time and watched the fishing boats coming in. The sun was starting to set behind the clouds when I finally decided to take off. As I was starting to leave I looked down and saw a mother with a teenage daughter behind her and toddler in front of her on a motorbike heading up the hill. On the way down however I only saw the mother and the toddler on the bike. A couple of minutes later I saw the other daughter walking and laughing, the incline had been too steep to carry them all up. I got back on the road and explored in a different direction and ended up in this little fishing village. I passed a big Habitat for Humanity construction project sign and reason that all the little shacks were new since the tsunami. The village was mostly people hanging out in their shacks, cooking, doing laundry. Dogs, chickens, kids and ducks were all running around outside. One shack was playing music and there were people dancing inside. I was getting alot of wtf looks from the people watching me roll through. I don't think in an aggressive way... just shock and confusion as to what I was doing there. I didn't stop to take any pictures though. I headed out of there back on the road and was on my way off the island when I noticed a dirt road off the main road with arches over it, like the entrances to a temple, except I didn't see any temples around. I thought about this for a second while I was driving and decided to turn around and try the road out. I came up to a little group of bungalows with monks out sweeping and pushing wheelbarrows around. There were some buddha statues so I stopped and took a couple of pictures and one of the monks told me to drive around the corner and follow this road up to the top of the hill and there was a temple at the top. At one point the road split with a no left turn sign so I bore right and kept heading up. The road curved around the hill at the top and there were statues built into the mountain all the way around the curve. I went all the way around the circle and came back to where I had just turned right. I backed up a little and saw some stairs so I headed up. It was a little ways up to the very top and when I got there the temple was closed. I was at the very top now and wanted to see the view from the other side of the temple. There was a ledge big enough to stand on going around the side so I scaled the building around to the other side where there was a large covered area with a great view. I hungout up there for a bit and it was dark by the time I got off the island and I had absolutely no clue where I was or if I had enough gas to make it to a station. I started going in the direction I thought the camp was and came upon a lively outdoor market. They looked like they had alot of stuff I hadn't seen in other parts of the island so I stopped to eat and look around. I was pretty hungry and it was really cheap here and there was alot of different food for sale here so I just kind of grazed between booths. First I had a kebab with big meatballs on it that looked so good. It wasn't good at all and I don't even think it was meat. Then I had a sausage on a stick which was different and decent. Then I tried out some of the bakeries for dessert. I was one of only a handful of farangs that I saw the whole night there so it was obviously not really a tourist destination. This did mean that shopping was much more laid back here without the people trying to grab you or barter with you non stop. There were more second hand clothes here than I've ever seen (probably our donations.) There were some artists selling their goods and lots of arts and crafts stuff. There was a guy with leather goods, lots of seashell jewelry booths, a guy with intricately carved wooden canes and boxes. A few booths had these little buddha carvings with guys looking at them with magnifying glasses like they were checking out diamonds. I stopped and looked at a few of them and befriended one guy who explained it to me. The monks used to do these little carvings and would sell them to make money. Or sometimes a temple will find a bunch of them in an old pot or something and then sell them to raise funds. Now there are collectors out there and like art historians they can tell when a carving was made and which temple, etc... So people began making counterfeits. Its kinda like antiques roadshow I guess for them to sort through all these and find a good one. Turns out I was talking to the son of the owner of this booth and he said I could come pick one out for free from the cheap bin. His dad came over and started to explain to me how to find one that was genuine. He then helped me dig through the cheap bin and find one carved out of wood. He said it was from a temple in Bangkok from the 1920s. There were some other ones I saw that I liked and I asked if he had any of those that were genuine. He disappeared for about 10 minutes looking through all them (there were hundreds of little carvings) and came back with one. Then he told me to wait and he went behind the counter and was looking through newspapers for another 5 or 10 minutes while I talked to his son. The newspapers had lots of pictures of different carvings and were probably trade papers. He finally came back and showed me this picture that looked exactly like the one I was holding. He said it was from a temple in central Thailand, I forget the name. Due to the length of time he took looking for a real one I gather most of the ones he was selling were fake. Before he showed me how to spot the fakes they had me completely fooled. I guess he was okay giving away the secrets since I had befriended his son and I was leaving on Monday. So I asked him how old this one was and he said 17th century. I headed out of there and ended up going down enough dead end streets that I didn't even know what direction home was. I finally found a road I recognized and made it back to the camp too late to do anything but put in a movie and passout.

Day 36

Went straight to the doctor after waking up to have him work on my shoulder and elbow some more. I left feeling pretty good and headed back to camp for another private lesson. Twenty minutes of jump rope, then more bagwork and then padwork. Doing a few rounds on the bag means you are more fatigued by the time you get to the padwork. This is a pretty good method because its when you are fatigued that you lose form and forget to block or cover up. I felt like I was holding my own though and still improving. We finished with the usual 200 knee/200 crunch exercises and then right after that it was time for afternoon training so I went into cage for grappling. It was just open mat with the instructors. A few of us went to dinner in Patong at a pretty nice place. Gaz and I went and did some shopping at this marketplace. He started talking to a guy about a suit so we got stuck in there for a little while. I spent most of the time playing peekaboo with the owner's daughter while they talked. I was supposed to meet back up with Eric but due to the suit guy I was late and couldn't find him at the designated meeting point. I figured I'd walk around a little and maybe see if Marco was in the area and sure enough he was. We went to a couple bars and then I bought Garden State and The Weatherman and went back to my room to watch.

Day 35

Woke up and went to do a private with Chanman. This time only had to jump rope 20 minutes, then a couple of rounds of shadowboxing and three rounds of bagwork. After that it was padwork and I felt like I was improving. We finished up with the usual exercises and as usual I was totally spent. I went back for advanced MMA with Gaz in the afternoon and after the usual warmup we left the cage for buddy drills in the yard. The first one you hold your buddy in your arms in front of you, walk the length of the yard and then turn around and then your buddy goes. The second one you hold your buddy over one shoulder, the third one behind the head over both shoulders. Then we did some drills where you hold your buddies foot and he has to hop backward the length of the yard and then forward, then switch feet. Then we did some wheelbarrow type races where both your ankles are held and you walk on your hands. Training hard with Chanman was really taking a toll and my legs were cramping badly during the exercises and my elbow and shoulder were killing me. We went back into the cage and learned some ankle pick takedowns, into sidemount into cradle control. We started sparring and in the first match Kristoffer's eyelid got cut open and Dan took him to the hospital to get stitched up. We tried to go a few more rounds of sparring but we were losing people to injuries... I was out myself icing my shoulder and elbow which were both hurting worse than ever before. So class was pretty much over and we all got cleaned up and met back to take a taxi into Patong to watch Elly fight. Ngoo had also taken a fight on a couple days notice. Ngoo had a good fight and won by decision. Elly's forehead got split open by an elbow and if it had been UFC they probably would have at least paused the fight to take care of the cut due to blood in the eyes. It was Patong though so she had to wait till the end of the round to get cleaned up. The cut pretty much stayed close the rest of the fight and she lost by decision. She got 18 stitches after the fight and had them redone the next day with 30 stitches.

Day 34

Woke up and headed to private with Chanman. This time had to jump rope for 30 minutes before we started. We started doing padwork and maybe my technique and movement are improving because he started wanting more power and speed. I was still exhausted from yesterday but he said I had good power. We did a few rounds on the big pads then moved on to the smaller hand pads. After that he put on the gloves and we played around with some light sparring for a few rounds. He was really happy with my head movement. Getting beat about the head, neck, face and torso can teach a person pretty quick about range. I wasn't as timid as the first time and we were able to turn it up a little. We were probably playing too rough when I caught an elbow to the head that shook me. I didn't see black or anything but I did drop to my knees to recover. Would have just been a standing count in boxing, no big deal. I was still kinda shaky though and I think he felt bad and we were past the time anyway so that was the end of the session. I finished up with the usual 200 knees and 200 crunches. He also makes me do pushups and crunches after every round so by the end of a session I'm completely obliterated. I laid on the canvas in a mid snow angel position for about 10 minutes and stared at the ceiling. Mac came by and tried to convince me to take a muay thai fight this weekend. I said I'd fight him mma but not muay thai. I went back to the bungalow and slept until afternoon training. I passed out before I could drink anything after the morning session and woke up dehydrated and hurting. You lose alot of water training here and its really important to stay hydrated. I skipped training and stayed in and watched Bas and drank alot. After a couple hours I was feeling better and headed to the internet cafe and read about the coup. I found out about it while I was training with Chanman but I forgot about it until I saw the front page of Yahoo News. I called home and then slept hard.

Day 33

Woke up and did my private with Chanman. He told me to jump rope for 40 minutes before we started, and then we did a few rounds of shadow boxing and moved on to padwork. He was up to his normal tricks but I was a little quicker and felt better at blocking and moving. After the big pads he put on the smaller hand pads which meant he could hit quicker but could also give me a target to throw combos on. This was alot more tiring than just sparring as I was moving, blocking, and throwing alot of strikes. After training I had to throw 200 knees on the ring post and do 200 crunches and peel myself off the canvas. I studied some Bas and ran some errands and got back to camp in time for the advanced mma class. We started warmup and I was hurting... still exhausted from the private earlier. This time we started class with sparring so that Gaz could see what we all needed to work on. We each did two five minute rounds starting from standing. Punches, takedowns and submissions allowed. We cleared the cage and did one round at a time with everyone watching. I was so drained I did terrible. Oh asked me what was wrong and said my performance was alot different. After that we learned a new way to guillotine, a guillotine defense and then we learned, drilled and sparred mount escapes forever. A few of us went to dinner and then I slept like the dead.

Day 32

Woke up and wasn't feeling 100% so skipped morning training. Lana and Elly stopped by and they weren't training either. After they left I alternated between reading and staring at the ceiling and then Lana came by again. She was waiting on her taxi to take her back to London and cold weather. We talked about her work in personal training and one of her clients is the architect of one of the buildings which will replace the world trade center. We exchanged info and said goodbye and after that Linda came by and we went to lunch at Jimmy's. We both had appointments with the Doc so we headed to Kata for some full contact healing. Elly came by too. She fights on Thursday and has a tear or something in her arm. I just did acupuncture today. I don't think it yielded the same results as when he brings out his torture devices and I will probably be going back to him a few more times before I leave. Got back in time for afternoon Muay Thai. No MMA today as Gaz and Dan both went on a visa run. There was a new trainer today - Chanman, a Fairtex trainer/fighter. After warmup he offered to wrap my hands and this meant he would be my trainer for the day. We did a few rounds of padwork and I was starting to like his style. Right away I was getting hit in the head for keeping my hands too low. If I stayed too close after throwing a combo his punches and kicks would remind me. He kept me on my toes constantly. Once he called out "1,2" which means a jab and a cross. I threw the jab and while throwing the cross realized the target was gone and was actually at that moment hitting me in the head. At the end of the last round I had to do five kicks with my right leg. I think I was too slow because on kick five he kicked my left leg out from under me and I ate canvas. He sent me to do bagwork for three rounds while he held pads for someone else. When he called me back in the ring he was putting his gloves on and I didn't know what to think. When the bell rung I found out we were sparring. The next few rounds were a barrage of head shots, body shots, getting my legs kicked out from under me and getting front kicked against the ropes. By the end I felt like my head movement had improved alot and I was ducking and weaving past alot of punches. As I said, different trainers have different styles in their technique and their training styles are also varied. Some focus alot on combinations and cardio, some on correcting technique. I feel like Chanman will really me help me alot on blocking, movement, and speed. This was the first time I almost threw up... although I think it was the strikes and not the workout. Brutal. I love it. I prepaid for 5 privates and start tomorrow. I will remember to bring my mouthpiece in the future though. After class I went to the internet cafe and used the road that is under construction. I started passing a car and was suddenly headed straight for the business end of a steamroller which was heading towards me. I didn't think I had enough time to brake without getting squished so I went ahead and gunned it and luckily made it past the car before the steamroller made it to me. I thought it was hilarious and had to laugh because it was like something out of a cartoon.

Day 31

Slept in until Gary came to say goodbye, he was on his way to the taxi and then Bangkok for a couple days and then Ireland. I went out to lunch with the guys and we shared some stories and pictures from the night before. After lunch I stopped by Aussie Adam's place and he was listening to August and Everything After and packing. We said our goodbyes and then his taxi came and I went to the internet cafe and then to sleep.

Day 30

Woke and did freestyle wrestling with Gaz. We learned double leg takedowns, a 2nd takedown off of the opponents defense, a 3rd takedown off the defense for the 2nd, and a 4th takedown off the defense for the 3rd. After that I slept a little and met up with some of the guys for lunch. Casey from Canada is having an oil painting done of his face on a bodybuilder's body wrestling a bull by the horns like the one in Dodgeball. Wish I'd thought of that. I went to the internet cafe and saw British Adam and his wife Jodi. Adam said our pictures were finally up on Tigermuaythai.com. I did the afternoon muay thai mostly with Mac and he continued showing me some clinch knee defenses and takedowns. We all went to dinner and Gary and I almost had a head on collision with another bike. Driving here is pretty much anything goes and I have had at least one close call everytime I have driven. This was definitely the closest. Motorbikes sometimes drive on the wrong side of the road here but usually they stay far enough to the left that you have time to stay out of the way. For some reason out of nowhere this guy was heading straight for us in the middle of the lane. I was going about 50km/h and he must have been flying because it was about two seconds from when we saw him to when we passed him. Gary said he was probably 5 or 6 feet in front of us when I got out of the way. The other driver didn't even move. This was the last weekend for alot of the people at the camp so after dinner we had a little party back at the camp and then took taxis to the Tiger Bar.

Day 29

Woke up, did Muay Thai, studied Bas, lifted weights, studied Bas. Afternoon submission wrestling with Gaz started by practicing triangles and armbars from the guard. After that we practiced an armbar, if opponent defends by pulling arm out you turn it into triangle, if triangle is broken turn it into armbar on the other arm. After class British Adam and Dan and I sat around talking a bit. Evidently Adam and his wife sold their house and belongings in Britain and everything they now own they have with them. They are going to see Australia for a month after Thailand where he has a couple job offers. If they like it they are just going to stay. Dan trained with mma fighter Elvis Sinosic in Australia and came to Thailand to train for a pro fight. He was better at jiu jitsu than the previous instructor and took the job offer to teach here. A few of us went to dinner at The Green Man Tavern, an authentic looking British style pub and restaurant. This place was really cool and also had a live band. Their english was mostly on point and they were playing stuff like The Beatles and James Blunt.

Day 28

I decided to cut out afternoon red bulls and use my ear plugs and was finally able to get a good nights sleep. Felt good. Did jiu jitsu in the morning with Dan and learned some cool half guard breaks and sweeps. After class Oh told us some Krabi Krabong stories. They have Thai vs Burmese fights on the border with no mouthguards and no gloves. Oh said when he used to fight they would tie the ropes around their hands and then treat the ropes to harden them. They no longer do this, but they do only use handwraps, and he said there are many fatalities from these fights. Oh said he had to lose one of his fights or he would have been killed. He said they showed him the gun. After breakfast we watched a dvd Oh had of one of these fights. The fights take place outside and the ring is as primitive as it gets. The ropes are actually ropes. The ring posts are actually wooden posts. There are no bleachers or seating, just a bunch of guys crowded around cheering. The fighters are wearing handwraps and are not exactly what I'd call technical. Pretty much its a Burmese version of the Agg-town fight videos. Gaz and I went to his place and his roomate, Tom from Australia was there. Tom recently purchased some black market BB guns and we did some target practice with his pump action BB shotgun and the M16 replica battery powered fully automatic. After that Gaz and I went to lift weights and then it was time for afternoon training. I did muay thai with Phet. Phet pretty much demands perfection from every punch, kick or elbow and is really vocal about it when you get it wrong. All of the trainers have come from different camps and have differences in their stances, striking, movements, etc. I like Phet's stance the best. Its the least like a western boxing stance and the most practical for mma in my opinion. After class we all went out to dinner and after dinner a couple of us headed to Gaz's house to watch Team America, play chess and shoot guns.

Day 27

Skipped morning training and made some phone calls home. Hit the grocery store, headed back to camp and studied Bas. It started raining pretty heavily and I hadn't been able to sleep at all the night before and I passed out. I woke up late for afternoon training and just stayed in the bungalow and studied the dvds, read, and made it an early night.

Day 26

Although I still couldn't fall or stay asleep the night before, I made it to morning training and did mma takedowns with Gaz. We learned single leg takedown from a jab, passing the guard to sidemount, and then from standing clinch to taking the back to takedown. We sparred the techniques for awhile and after class I showed Oh some more jiu jitsu. After that I took care of laundry and met up with with Aussie Adam, Gaz, Lana and Linda in Kata. We all had massages at the place I had gone to before. Everyone else got full body oil massages but I just got foot because I had some specific kinks that needed to be worked out. After that we did a little shopping and we ended up in another back room DVD warehouse. Adam got about 40 for around 2 bucks each. He tested them on their player while the rest of us walked around outside occasionally meeting each other in shops. Once while I was passing a bar this Thai girl ran out and wouldn't let me pass and kept trying to hug me. She stank of booze and I kept saying "No touch!" and jumping back. After that I went back to my bike and put my shirt on and stayed with the group. It rained a bit on the way back but not terribly, and I hit the open air market by our place for some bananas and shorts. It rained really heavily during class and we were lucky to have made it back in time. Tonight was ground and pound and its still as fun as the name implies. Alot more technique than you would think though. We learned side control to knee on stomach to full mount with punching combos the whole way through. We then sparred with our partner from both the top and bottom positions and then had a tournament. I won my first match with a side mount to scarf hold to an armbar with my legs. Not sure what the official name for this armbar is. I won my second match from the guard with a punch deflection into side choke which I had just shown Oh earlier. I forgot to ask if he recognized it. As long as you don't panic or get knocked out its alot of fun working submissions and strikes at the same time. Striking can open up opportunities for submissions, but can also be capitalized on, such as that side choke. In the championship match I almost had an armbar but got mounted and couldn't escape. He had a head and 60 lbs of muscle on me though so it was a good workout. I had been planning on getting a 2 week membership to the gym and lifting weights after class but decided just to hit the internet cafe and make it an early night and so I can make sure I train tomorrow.

Day 25

So. I can't sleep without melatonin. I couldn't sleep before I started taking it either. The doctor said its good and safe and everyone is happy. But I didn't bring enough. So I looked everywhere to replace it. Ended up with some pills that the pharmacist said were similar to ambien and would only last 6-8 hours. Sounds good to me. So Sunday night I take one and put in a dvd. End up watching the whole dvd and still not falling asleep for another hour or so. However, once I do fall asleep, I wake up at the crack of 1:30 pm. Great. I could have been sleeping off the rest of the 24 hour malaria though. So I just watched some Bas and hit the internet cafe where I found Gaz, Dan and Jason. Found out about Cro Cop winning Pride's open-weight Grand Prix and watched the video of his KO on Wanderlei - whose swollen right eye couldn't see the textbook left high kick coming. Cro Cop is a senator in Croatia, and its funny to picture his political opponents watching him fight. Afternoon grappling was open mat with time to ask questions of Dan and Gaz. After class Gary and I spent some more time rolling. Everybody met at Jimmy's where I was still sweating like crazy and possibly still battling a touch of the typhoid. After dinner everyone took a taxi to Patong to do shopping except for Gaz and I who took the choppers. Patong seems filthier and seedier everytime I go. Sometimes in the movies when there has been an armageddon there is a Sodom and Gomorrorah type of apocolyptic wild west saloon town where you can buy or see anything you can concieve of. Every now and then Patong seems kinda like that. But good times. There is one main road following the beach, and off this road there are other roads with little shops and bars. We were on one of the ones which closes off to traffic at night and everyone can walk in the street. Off this street there are other hallways and corridors with shops. We were loosely following the group down one corridor when everyone kinda disappeared. Then this guy stinking of liquor walks by and tells me "be careful or you could spend all of your money in there" and points to a wall at the back of a shop. This is pretty much the same line as in "Hostel" and really creepy. Turns out one of the mirrors was a door and behind it a supply closet and around the corner a room with a billion bootleg DVDs and everybody in the group. Gaz and Marco and I went to walk around some more and I stopped at a table with 15 or 20 dvds. Then this guy says he has more for 40 baht cheaper than the other place. We follow him down some hallways, and then he pushed on the wall which was a hidden door and behind it another holy grail of dvd collections. I had really just been in the mood to see Garden State which he didn't have so we took off. We went back and were waiting for everyone when across the street and through the crowd I saw a tv with Matt Hughes pacing and staring down his opponent. I said "Matt Hughes" and pointed. We wordlessly and instantaneously proceeded like moths to a flame. We didn't know how long everyone was going to be so Gaz and I had a couple cold ones and watched the fights. This was the fight where BJ Penn takes his back for the rear naked choke. Gaz, who is a wrestler, said they all have a tendency to give up their back. Everyone stopped by and then took off to their taxi and eventually we took off too.

Day 24

Woke up feeling quite a bit better but not 100%. Luckily there is no training today so I relaxed in the bungalow. Something was telling me to eat something greasy and soak up the evil forces in my body. I was really craving Mickey D's or pizza and went to return Adam's dvds and found out they were just heading out for lunch and the beach. The guys had a good time at Tiger Bar last night and I got to see some of his pictures and wished I could've gone. Adam's friend Jason had just arrived from Australia and most everybody was still asleep so Adam, Jason, Lana and myself headed out. We had some lunch in Kata and I had a burger and it was decent but different. We took the coastal rode south to Nai Harn Beach and it was gorgeous and sunny. The waves were pretty big today. They were having the Phuket surfing contest in Kata this weekend but we didn't stop to watch. We rented some beach chairs and it was pretty nice just chilling out there after swimming. I still had the big mac itch so I headed to Tesco where they have a Mickey D's. It was pretty nasty and I couldn't eat it. In all fairness it was pretty much how I remembered them in America. I thought maybe some ice cream would help my stomach if I fell ill again so I headed to the freezer. I was browsing through the flavors and I saw corn flavor. This shook my ice cream belief systrem to the core. Maybe I was still ill or maybe it was having my dessert foundation destroyed, but I felt dizzy and sick and left.

I was chilling in the bungalow and Gary and Ric stopped by. A couple minutes late Maddox and Gaz too. Maddox was waiting on his cab to take him to his flight to take him to the French Foreign Legion. They took off and I went to loan Adam a Tsunami dvd he wanted. I talked to Jason, from L.A. who had the same symptoms as me yesterday. He was also craving Mickey Ds and pizza but I told him I felt worse after my Big Mac.

Theres been a strange coincidence of the music I'm listening to popping up in the movies I watched while bed ridden. "Invincible" and "My Super Ex Girlfriend" both had covers of The Velvet Underground & Nico's "These Days". The Old 97s were featured prominently in "The Breakup" and they opened up their concert with "TimeBomb" which I've been somewhat obssessing over. Also "The Beach" had a reggae version of "Police and Thieves" which at first I thought was a cover but was probably the original.

Day 23

Woke up terribly sick. Had a fever, body aches and a throbbing headache. I spent the entire day in bed alternating between having the chills, burning up, and cold sweats. Aussie Adam came by that night and said they were having a bbq so I went ahead showered up and headed over. I was still very dizzy when standing or walking and I was the only one at the bbq sweating like a stuck pig so I didn't stick around that long. I borrowed a couple of Adam's Dvds and headed back to the bungalow to hopefully sleep it off.

Day 22

After Muay Thai in the morning I watched some Bas Dvds and hit the internet cafe where I saw Gaz, Dan, and Jason. I did submission wrestling with Dan in the evening. He trained with Elvis Sinosic in Australia and has some good pointers. We learned armbars and triangles and defenses and escapes for those. It was good to focus on the basics for a change. There are always little things that are easy to forget but make a big difference in getting the submission right. After that we rolled, which went well... I was able to pull off guillotines, side chokes and blood chokes. I'm getting used to rolling soaking wet, but it does make the cage slippery. I did have to tap one time b/c Gary had me in side control and his shirt was covering my mouth and nose. This was like trying to breath through a wet rag and I couldn't get oxygen and was forced to submit. After class I rolled some more with Tom, who has his own kickboxing/mma school in Germany. He wanted to know the defenses for my guillotines and side chokes, and Eddie and Iman took some pictures for his school's website. I went to go get my camera to show Gaz some videos of his fight and when I came back there was a full fledged chick fight going on. One of the girls works at the camp and one I hadn't seen before. A few trainers and a couple students jumped in but it took a good 5 minutes of hard work to unpry their fingers from each others hair. I showed Gaz the videos and I got a few good ones. One of them he baits the guy by crouching for a second. When the guy approaches he jumps up and kicks him in the head. They fall to the ground and Gaz would've pulled guard but, being Muay Thai they were stood up. Gaz then hits him with a flying elbow to the face. Its only a 15 second video so I'll put it on YouTube eventually. After that we just went to dinner.

Day 21

I was feeling pretty ill so skipped morning training. It was raining and pretty nice to stay in the bungalow and watch the Bas Rutten DVDs. When I was feeling better I went into Patong to do a little shopping. After that I went to the huge grocery store and ate lunch at a sushi place in the food court upstairs. Got back to the bungalow and watched "Tom Yum Goong", Tony Jaa's follow up to Ong Bak. I found it on the front page of IMDB and it is called "The Protector" in the states. I liked this film more than Ong Bak. The production level was higher with bigger chase sequences (i.e. a helicopter vs a speedboat), bigger stunts (Tony doing a flying double knee off a skycraper) and the fight scenes were unreal. The cinematography, acting and storyline are on a whole different level than western action movies.

Did Muay Thai in the afternoon. Mac, the head Thai instructor showed me some really good stuff from the clinch. Really applicable to MMA and in reality could be traditional jiujitsu or aikido moves. He's a head shorter and I probably outweigh him by 50 lbs but he was throwing me to the ground with ease when I clinched him. I will probably do some privates with him while I'm here.

After class everyone loaded up in a taxi and headed to the fights. I went on my bike b/c it was a nice night for riding and I didn't feel like waiting on the taxi afterwards. I went to Kata first and took the coastal rode north to Patong. The road is through the hills and has alot of turns and curves in it and is alot of fun on the hog. The ocean view was great and I was having fun weaving in and out of cars when suddenly I was passing three elephants and riders walking next to the road. It was pretty dark and luckily I was paying attention. They were enormous.

Gaz was pumped up for his first Muay Thai fight which he took on 3 days notice. This was the greatest night of fights I have seen since I've been here. All the fights were action packed and there were a couple grudge and rubber matches on the card. The place was packed and going crazy for a couple of the fights. Gaz's fight was the headliner and the guy he was fighting was an American who trains and fights Muay Thai at a different gym. He was a head taller and probably had 40 or 50 lbs on Gaz. This fight was the best fight of the night. Gaz clinched him a couple times early on and picked him up and put him on his back. Evidently in Muay Thai it is illegal to twist your hips on a throw, which eliminated Gaz's strength of wrestling throws. Gaz hit him with punches and elbows which you could hear from the crowd and bloodied up his face and the guy looked like he was gassing. After one punch in the mouth the American acted like he had gotten kicked in his charlie browns but it looked like he wanted a break and he was spitting up blood. Groin shots are legal here anyway. I was kind of worried about this because Gaz had borrowed my plastic cup for the fight because the Thai ones, although steel, were too small. In the 4th round he clinched Gaz and started throwing knees and the ref stopped it. It was a good fight and Gaz really came close to knocking him out with punches and elbows. I've never seen anyone eat that many elbows to the face. You could hear them from the crowd and see the sweat fly from the guy's head. Maddox thought he might've taken some painkillers or drugs before the fight.

Day 20

Stayed up too late blogging at the internet cafe the night before and woke up late. I didn't want to be late for training so I just stayed in and studied the big DVDs of combat. I drove into Kata for my last appointment with the doctor and things are looking really good with the elbow and shoulder. I've been given the all clear for hardcore training. He put a homemade magnetic thing on my elbow and shoulder and left it for awhile and said it would help. He explained to me how he made it and it sounds like it might be capable of time travel. He says he is a mad scientist and has all sorts of stuff like that.

I walked around some of the shops in Kata for a bit and headed back towards the gym. I ate at a little vegetarian place close to the camp in Chalong. You get to taste test the food which is pretty cool and good for western stomachs. The Germans from camp came in right after I ordered and we ate together. Iman has a fight coming up on Monday. After that I hit the internet cafe and headed back to camp for Muay Thai.

After Muay Thai I had wanted to go to the market to get some eggs but it was closed. Everyone advised against me getting eggs from the market. Julian's girlfriend, who is from Thailand was the only person who said it was okay. Until she found out I was drinking them then I had no one in my corner. After that we all went to the Anchor Inn in Chalong. Apologies if this blog is getting a little mundane as I settle into the routine of training and day to day activities.

Day 19

Woke up late due to being out late for the fights and skipped morning training. I studied some of my Bas Rutten dvds though so I felt productive. Aussie Adam knocked on my door about noon and he and Lana and I headed out. Lana is from Croatia living in London and is a personal trainer. We went to drop off some laundry and as I was pulling the clothes out of my bag and handing them to the cleaner a frog jumped from the bunch in my hand and hit the cleaner in the face. We ate lunch in Chalong and hit an internet cafe there and then headed to the grocery store in the mall. The grocery store there is kinda like a Central Market or Whole Foods compared to the Super Walmart style I had been going to. The prices are similar though on most items.

We headed back to camp and got back just in time for training. Tonight was ground and pound with Gaz. We learned side control to punching to full mount, side control punching combinations to americana, and full mount punching combos. After that we sparred using these techniques with the person on bottom trying to get to their feet and the person on top trying to maintain side control and punch to a submission, or just punch and maintain. After that we had a little mma tournament. My first match was against Oh and I won. When we were practicing the combos from the full mount he politely asked me to hit him harder. Since he has a fight coming up he wants some realistic training. I got him in a full mount while sparring and turned up the heat a bit and somebody yelled 'Nik Hughes'. I was doing okay in my second match, working for a full guard when I ate one to the eye/temple that rocked me and before I could recover I ate another on the chin/nose and saw black... my hands dropped to the floor and my mouthpiece fell out. When I opened my eyes they were putting my mouthpiece back in but I went ahead and bowed out of that round. I still had some cobwebs in my head and the next round was pretty much a draw. After class Brave Dave and I worked on some submissions a little more. I still had some energy so I did some bagwork for about an hour after that. Prathet, one of the trainers is going to start learning mma and probably competing so I spent awhile showing him some groundwork. Will, the owner of the camp has connections with a Rumble on the Rock affiliate in Guam and they are looking for fighters to compete there and then possibly move up to the ROTR in Hawaii.

After that everybody went to Jimmy's and we had some good times. Other new people at camp are Wade from South Africa and Marko from Finland. Maddox got sick and hasn't been able to eat or train so he pulled out of the fight this Thursday night. Gaz took the fight instead... with 3 days notice. I watched Ong Bak and I want to be Tony Jaa when I grow up. There are some pretty insane stunts and fight sequences. Since he was a stuntman he doesn't use any, and this is a selling point in his movies. I might trade Oh some Krabi Krabong lessons for submissions.

Day 18

Went for the beach run and stair workout on account of taking it easy on the elbow. I got the chance to talk to Oh after the stairs, this was his first day training at the camp. Oh is a Thai stuntman and personal trainer preparing for an MMA fight in Guam in October. He hasn't fought in a few years but is trained in Krabi Krabong which is the art of hand to hand combat and is the origin of Muay Thai. They learn weapons and punch coconuts and kick banana trees. Their non-weapon competitions are similar to Muay Thai but there are differences. For instance they tie rope around their fists instead of using gloves. I think some of this may be highlighted in the movie Ong Bak starring Tony Jaa. Oh said he knows Tony and they trained at the same camp. Oh doesn't know any groundfighting and is going to be learning mma and teaching at the camp before the fight. He said he may have some work coming up in Ong Bak sequels. He told us a story where he was supposed to flip off of one platform, land on another platform and do another flip onto a bamboo platform. The platform broke and he got pretty messed up.

The stairs completely obliterated me and the water felt great to jump in. Aussie Adam and I grabbed some lunch in Kata afterwards and I headed to the good doctor. The metal blade scraping made less crunching noise and the doc was surprised. the Russian remote control sewing machine gave a readout that said things were greatly improved. You don't feel the shock from this device unless there is an injury so I could tell there was alot of improvement too. He gave me the go ahead to workout and recommended I really bang on it, so that if it hurts again we can isolate the injury. I was really pumped at this news and looking forward to training. I took a new road which follows the coast south to Nai Harn beach. This beach is on the southern tip of the island and is in a bay enclosed by Cliffs and green hills. There were a couple shops and one hotel but few tourists and this was the most serene beach I've been too. I saw some cool cliffs at one end I wanted to climb so I walked the length of the beach and got to climbing. I didn't go all the way to the top but I found a nice little sitting spot for awhile. After that I attempted some body surfing and swam a bit and headed back to camp.

Opted for MMA training in the afternoon with Dan. We learned side control to Americana, the defense for that into a side choke, and side control to Kimura. After that we did a king of the mat to practice the techniques. I volunteered and started first from my back. The person on top's goal was to maintain control and get a submission, the person on bottom's goal was to get to knees or pull guard. I ended up winning all 7 or 8 rounds so I had to stay on my back the whole time. After that we had a grappling tournament. I lost my first match but won my second. I had a dramatic Greco/Judo takedown on a bigger opponent which entertained the crowd. After class I showed Oh some more MMA and submissions. He has only a few weeks to learn for his fight but he seems like a quick learner.

After that everybody went into Patong to watch a couple of the trainers fight. Ngoo was knocked out by an elbow and needed 10 stitches above his eye. Yak's fight was the headliner and everyone had been looking forward to it. The guy he was fighting was a K1 fighter who was taller and outweighed him by 40 lbs. Everyone warned him not to take the fight, but he took it and bet his earnings on himself as he does every fight. He ended up getting knocked out in the first round. After the fight one of his teeth was broken and bleeding. It was raining and kind of depressing so no Tiger Bar tonight.

Day 17

Woke up relived some of the shenanigans from the night before and checked out. There was a sign in the bathroom that said "Do not flush any toilet paper or plastic bottles." I forgot to get a picture of this but it gave us a good laugh. We had some breakfast and shopped on the island while waiting for the ferry to come. We got back to the island and chilled out and went to dinner after awhile. At dinner Gaz told a story of one of his friends who was in Cambodia. Evidently in the Cambodian countryside there is a farm you can go to and fire a rocket launcher at a cow for a hundred bucks. Well his buddy missed. The farmer made him take the cow anyway. He walked and gave the cow to the first kid he saw.

Day 16

Woke up and headed to Phi Phi island with Brave Dave, Gary, Kevin, Jason, Ric, Elly and Linda. The ferry ride was pretty cool and we rode on top of the boat. It was only about an hour and a half and cool to get out on the water and see all of the outlying islands. Pulling up into the island we got close to some nice National Geographicesque scenery. There wasn't much to the left of the pier and it turns out everything to the left was wiped out by the tsunami. The island has only a small part that is developed. There are no roads just brick sidewalks crammed with restaurants, stores, and hotels. We had some lunch and checked into a hotel and walked around a little. Very nice eating in the seaside restaurants watching the boats and scenery. After that I hit the beach with Elly and Linda and the guys went to a pub. We swam in a bay surrounded on both sides by green cliffs. The water was like a warm bath and very blue. There were very little waves and 100 meters out we were still knee deep and 200 meters out just up to our waists. We met up with the guys just as they were finishing dinner so they headed back to the hotel and we sat to eat. This restaurant was pretty far from the rest of the stuff on the island. Fairly dark except for the lantern they put on the table and quiet except for the waves. For clarification we didn't actually eat inside the restaurant but at a table they had next to the beach. We met up with the guys and headed out for some of the islands' night life. There are a few bars and mostly tourists on the island so it is a pretty good time. They filmed The Beach here and there are alot of westerners who live here just for the snorkeling and diving and solitude. We didn't have time for any snorkeling but I might like to go back for some. There are tons of outlying islands that you can get dropped off at by a water taxi and spend the day by yourself and then they can come pick you up.

Day 15

Woke up and headed straight for the acupuncturist. There were no clouds in the sky and it looked like it was going to be a beautiful day. I stopped by the side of the road a few times on the way to Kata just to take pictures of the hills or the ocean. I pulled up to find the doctor outside talking to the phone guys and he told me his phone lines had been down for four days. He asked what the problem was and said he would have me fixed up in no time. Basically its just tendonitis but recently I started to feel pain and tightness in the bicep and shoulder. Gaz tried working on it yesterday and said the bicep was so tight he couldn't feel both heads of the muscle, which he found to be unusual. Anyway the good doctor was confident he could get me feeling better after the first visit and basically back to functionality after two more visits. He started out by gelling up the elbow and pulled out this metal shoe horn looking device. Basically he just dug into the arm as if he was smoothing it out under the skin. It was making a kind of crunching sound and he said that was the fascia bunched up and he was making it right again. Occasionally he would ask if it hurt and I told him I could feel it. He said this was the most painful procedure and most people screamed and winced and this helped him find out what areas he needed to work on. He found my lack of reaction curious but I assured him I could feel it and showed him where. After that he put some ointments on it and said it was for racehorses but it wasn't roids.

Next he pulled out what looked like a remote control with a digital read out and said it was made by the Russians. He rubbed one end on the skin and it would basically send a shock through the skin. I asked if it was similar to the battery powered electrical stimulator I had and he said it was totally different. When he hit a nerve my hand or fingers would twitch though. The rest of the time it just felt like he was using a sewing machine on the skin. He said this was the 2nd most painful procedure. When he would rub it on an area that was damaged or inflamed it would literally stick to it, and this helped him know where the injury was. My bicep really wasn't a problem but the elbow and shoulder were pretty messed up. He said the body probably started compensating for the hurt elbow and that messed up the shoulder.

Next was what he called the jackhammer. That's pretty much what it was: a motorized dull hammer that he used on the elbow, bicep and shoulder. After that he adjusted the elbow and the shoulder, and said the shoulder wasn't really out of alignment and that was good. We talked quite a bit through all the procedures and I dig this guy. He has hair like Oscar Bluthe and is about 60 but he could probably pass for 40s. He's fit and does a triathlon every month. He grew up in Hawaii and I presume got his degrees in the states. He learned acupuncture in China and worked in a clinic in Sri Lanka but said he has been in Thailand since 91 and that location since 94. He started playing rugby when he was 49 but quit when he was 51. Now he's pretty much the guerilla terrorist of holistic health on the island.

He was confident in the first 3 procedures and said that acupuncture probably wasn't even necessary. I had heard good things about it and wanted to try it so we went into another room. He put a needle into my foot, knee, the top of my head, and elbow and shoulder. I asked if it was supposed to hurt more in the injured areas and he said definitely. I didn't feel the others but the elbow and shoulder ones might as well have been nails. Next he pulled out what looked like a miniature jump start kit and hooked them up to the needles in the shoulder and elbow and cranked up the power. I normally like a lot of juice but he didn't like my arm flopping around so he turned it down. So after all that I was feeling pretty good. I'll see him once Monday and once Wednesday and then he's off to Malaysia for a triathlon. He told me to take it easy on the training and I may take his advice. I will probably just run on the beach and do those stairs in Kata Noi.

After that I drove into Patong to get a haircut and shop. I hadn't taken this highway before and it was nice. It went through the hills a bit but followed the coast and was fun on the crotch rocket. I had to stop a few times to take pictures of the coast and the islands. It was such a nice day I had my shirt off on the bike and just kept it off while walking around in Patong. All of the suit guys and massage girls were yelling out stuff like "Hey nice body!" and "Hey, Body Man!" If you are walking on the beach side its mostly okay, they still yell at you but its easier to get away. If you are walking on the shops side its pretty relentless. You can hardly walk a few steps without someone trying to shake your hand and get you to come inside and by a suit or bootleg dvds or board shorts or whatever. If you shake their hands they won't let go though. Most of the time I just shake my head and keep my hands away from them. If they get really close with an open hand I will make a fist and touch it to their fist. Respect. Since they can't grab on you can tell this throws them off. They are nice, just relentless. Part of me admires the hustle but when you are bombarded for long enough it gets to be stressful. I found a place and got my head shaved. On a side note I shaved off of my goatee pretty soon after I got here. Too hot.

I ate lunch on the beach, (my table was literally on the sand) and watched the people and the parasailers in the water. I had a crab, squid and shrimp cocktail for an appetizer. Served with a dressing over a salad. Everything was good except the squid. Then I had stir fried beef "hong kong" with mushrooms and green onions. Heading back to my bike I saw a kid in a wheelchair having a tough time. It was really hot by this point and actually he looked like he had given up and the crowd was just moving all around him. I'm not sure what his condition was but he was hunched over, really slight and could talk a little but no English. I asked where he was headed but I didn't know what he was saying so he just pointed. I started pushing him and would check in occasionally and he just kept pointing. It was the opposite direction of my bike and I didn't really know how far I was going to push him, but good times. He ended up just wanting to go into a convenience store so I pushed him in and the clerks were able to talk to him.

After that I felt like seeing Phromthep Cape, the southernmost tip of the island. Its actually on a hill and you can see ocean forever. There weren't any clouds today and looking south everything was bright blue, except for the green of the outlying islands. It was really quiet except for the sounds of the waves crashing below. I climbed down a little ways and found a cliff to sit on. I just sat there awhile and thought.

After that I wanted to walk the Pier in Chalong. It was a good ten minute walk to the end of the pier. I hung out there a little while but didn't really think about anything. Sometimes I sits and thinks and sometimes I just sits. After that I saw a vendor with stuff I hadn't seen before. I got four little fried things on a skewer. She poured some sweet sauce on top and it looked like they were going to be crab rangoons but inside were little eggs.

I got back to camp and training was finishing and everyone was going out to dinner. We went to this place called the Anchor Inn near the water and it was really good. Per Rick's recommendation I had the stir fried chicken with garlic and peppers. Really filling. There was about 15 of us there and we got a little rowdy and had a good time. Maddox, Gaz and Dave showed up and had already eaten somewhere else. Dave hadn't heard about the throwing of the dinnerware and the broken bottle so we had some fun reliving those stories. Maddox agreed yesterday to fight another farang this Thursday so he's got less than a week to train for the fight. Now I'm at Jimmy's on the wifi. I'm getting to know the waitresses and they all said I look a lot younger. Tomorrow Gary, Kevin, Dave, Elly, Linda and myself are all going to Phi Phi island. Its an hour and a half ferry and we will get rooms there tomorrow night for about 500 baht. Again it is about 40 baht for a buck so sweet. Supposed to be a lot of nice beaches and resorts and no hookers on the island, just tourists and a really good time.

Day 14

Woke up and waited for the rain to stop so I could call the fam during family night. Had a good conversation and skipped training because I wanted to take it easy on my elbow. I stopped at a little restaurant and had some pad thai, it wasn't as good as the street vendor's that I like. I was right by the Wat Chalong temple and it wasn't raining so I walked around there and took some pictures for a little while. It is a huge Buddhist temple really close to the camp. It seems like a big tourist destination for both Thai and Farangs. There were a couple different groups of school kids touring while I was there. I headed back to camp to get the card of this acupuncturist in Kata from Dan. Will referred him and he is supposed to be really good. Aussie Adam also knew of a good massage place in Kata and wanted to get something to eat so we hit the road.

We tried to take a shortcut and realized that our road was heading up. We both had full tanks of gas and decided to follow the road just to see how far up the mountain it went. (I'm not sure the elevation but in West Texas it would definitely be called a mountain.) The road was just dirt and gravel and pretty eroded but it was a fun ride on the choppers. It was cloudy and a little misty and there were some great views along the way. Sometimes we could see the pier by Jimmy's Lighthouse (our side of the island) and sometimes we could see Kata and the other side of the island. I stopped to take some pictures but they won't do it justice. We got to the top and found a giant golden Buddha and construction of a new temple. I had seen this from the ground but it was too small to be able to tell what it was. Great view from the top. We headed back down and at one point I looked up and above the trees I could see the ocean and it seemed to go on forever. It was a weird angle I guess and a little disorienting.

We got to Kata and had some lunch at a place near the beach. They brought out Connect Four after we ordered which was flippin' sweet. Most of the restaurants here have the food ready pretty quick and we only had time for one game. I had fried rice with shrimp and calamari served in a hollowed out pineapple with fruits and veggies around the side. Dessert was a big fruit dish again, this time with papaya as well. The acupuncturist's card had no address so we asked some people at the restaurant and they had no idea. We tried calling the number but couldn't get through. We drove around a bit and couldn't find it so we went ahead to get the massages first. It was 300 baht for an hour of hot oil massage so that was really relaxing. We both had some tender spots after a few days of training and it was good to get them worked out. Adam said he proposed to his wife here a couple years ago. He rented a speed boat and they spent the day snorkeling around the islands and then ate at a private restaurant. I presume he rented the place out b/c he said they were the only patrons. Then they went to a secluded island that you can only get to twice a day b/c of the tides. He said they were the only ones on the island and that's where he proposed. He had tipped the staff at their resort to put rose pedals around the room but when they got back they had made a heart and written 'Love' in rose pedals on the bed.

Nobody at the massage place knew how to get to the acupuncturist either. Adam had to get going so I hit an internet café and found the address and went to try and find it yet again. Turns out we had driven right by it twice but it was on an out of the way side street. Well, nobody was there and it was locked up so I headed back to camp. By this point its raining again and surprisingly cool on the way home. I skipped afternoon training to take it easy on the elbow and pretty much just read, wrote, chilled in the bungalow and made it an early night.

Day 13

Woke up about 6 and had some breakfast and was training by 7. It was a little misty and sprinkling but felt good with a little breeze while training. The training facility is 3 rings, one cage, a bunch of bags and padded poles, some weights and a juice bar. I did muay thai this morning and was feeling pretty good with the jet lag behind me. A typical training session is everyone warming up by jumping rope, then doing some stretches as a group. After this a trainer will grab you and wrap your hands and you'll do rounds of padwork in the ring. Padwork is the trainer holding the pads and calling out combinations of punches, kicks, elbows and knees. You also work on footwork and blocking his punches and kicks between combos. After this the trainer will put you on a bag and say "100 push kicks" or "100 knees" and then correct your technique. You may end up moving to different stations and working on a few different techniques. After a couple hours everybody does stretches and cool down as a group.

Sat down at the juice bar for a bit and then went to breakfast with Aussie Adam, Gaz and Elly. I pointed out something I wanted and Adam said it looked really spicy but I got it anyway and so did he. Turns out it really was spicy. Halfway through the meal I look beside me to see how he's faring and he is bright red and sweating like we're in a steam room. He said 'I only got it b/c I thought, well if he can handle it I can handle it.' I'm sure I didn't look much better and we ended up having to down some soymilk to kill it. Elly said she had English channels on her t.v. so they went back to her place to watch and I went and chilled in the sauna and steam room a bit. After that grabbed some stuff at Tesco and took a nap before afternoon training.

Opted for submission grappling and I am getting used to the humidity. The weather is comfortable if you are just walking around. Cooler than Texas and the humidity isn't that bad. Unless you are running stairs or training, then all of a sudden it feels like you are in a sauna and you sweat profusely accordingly. We learned some rubber guard stuff which I don't think will ever be an effective part of my game. Seems good for naturally limber guys with long legs but I had a hard time executing the moves when we rolled. The rest of the sparring went well and I was able to pull off armbars, anaconda and rear naked chokes.

After that I just went down to Jimmy's to use the wifi and get some dinner. Had a huge serving of cashew chicken and another fresh coconut. Pretty cool to have a great view of the water, eating in a lighthouse, feeling the breeze, drinking a coconut, and be on wifi. Not too many people there tonight, just a couple of salty euro sailors and myself. Couple new people at camp: Linda, from Iceland. She told me her Icelandic name and as I was trying to wrap my brain around it she said her second name was Linda which was easier. Jason, from L.A., and Tom, Eddy and Iman from Germany.

Am going to be keeping earplugs handy tonight thanks to Little Jerry Seinfeld #2 who started cock a doodling at 4 a.m. behind my bungalow last night. He and his crew hang around my bungalow occasionally. I looked up Thailand's voltage and checked all my electronics gear and found out everything I brought except for the heating pad works here. So now I get to write from the comfort of my bungalow. My bungalow is really cushy with a large wrap around porch, comfortable queen sized bed, hot shower, remote controlled A/C and de-humidifier, tv/dvd and fridge. The sounds of the jungle are all I hear at night and really relaxing; when it rains even more so. Cushy was the word of the day in a segment on the local news for teaching English. On a similar note, thanks to the varied nationalities at this camp I am the one with the new slang.

Day 12

Due to staying out until 5 a.m. I deliberately slept through training, as did most people in the camp. Instead I hit the internet café, picked up some stuff at the market and was back in time for afternoon training. Did a session of ground and pound with Gaz. We started out with an intense warmup and had a really good sweat going by the time we got to technique. We learned some punching combos from being in your opponents guard. Next, from your opponent in your guard we learned arm control to cross face to guillotine to liver punching to kimura to triangle. I've found that good grapplers use their ground game the way boxers use punches. After practicing these techniques awhile, we sparred with one person starting on top and one on bottom. The person on top practiced the combos we learned and the person on bottom practiced the submissions. I did good from both positions and was able to pull off kimuras, triangles and an armbar. Technically we hadn't practiced armbar but he had warned us to keep our hands palm down on your opponent so you can stop the armbar attack. It was a lot of fun sparring ground and pound with the boxing gloves. Wakes you up getting hit and brings your concentration up. Also felt good to practice submissions while being hit grappling and submissions are usually practiced independent of striking. Thus if you know you aren't going to get hit you only have to defend against the submissions. As usual, the more variables that are introduced the more the game changes. We did a few rounds of sparring and got minute water breaks in between. Once a guy was late getting back in the cage between breaks and we had to do pushups for a while. Good times. When most of us were at the point of physical exhaustion Gaz put a heavybag in the middle and said we were each going to basically do a burnout on it. We would mount the bag and he would call out combos for us to do. Either fast punching, deliberate punching, hooks or overhands. I went first and Gaz would call out something like 5 deliberate 4 hooks 2 overhands etc I pretty much had to crawl away when my time was up. Ground striking seems to be pretty novel here, and a lot of the Thai trainers and Muay Thai students stopped to watch our sparring and burnouts.

After practice a lot of us went to Jimmy's Lighthouse. Jimmy's is an open air restaurant/bar under a lighthouse next to the pier and boat docks. When we got there Maddox was talking to his girlfriend back home via webcam on his laptop and it turns out they also have free wifi. I got a huge serving of stir-fried beef, mushrooms and peppers with oyster sauce for about 2 bucks. Gary and I also ordered coconut milk. Basically they just cut it open and put a straw in it. He said it was cheaper to get them at the market but really hard to get it open. The radio was playing alt country bluegrass stuff and there was a nice breeze coming in from the ocean so Kevin and Gary, Rick from England and Aussie Adam and I stayed around talking and sharing stories from Thailand and back home. Adam said when he was in South Africa some of the neighborhoods were really dangerous with a high incident of carjacking. One of his friends outfitted his bmw with flamethrowers on each side that would roast any would be carjackers.

Day 11

Opted for MMA instructor Daniel's beach workout this morning. Everyone asked if I had eaten already and told me I would be seeing it again. We drove into Kata Noi just south of Kata and this beach was great. A few surfers out, surfing is much better here in the low season. From the street down to the beach there are about 90 steep steps and thus this was the location for the workout. It was just Dave and I doing the workout and we started out with a beach jog and then did the stairs. At the top of the stairs Dan held pads while we threw 20 combinations. Some of the combinations were 7 or 8 punches and with fatigue it becomes a mental challenge as well. I swam for a bit after that and it felt great. We then went to this vegetarian restaurant and ate for about 20 baht each. I'm not sure what I ate, it was pretty spicy but good. Over conversation Daniel said he grew up in the bush in Australia and was home schooled. He left home about 14 and had a graphic design degree and his own company by 16 and has been wandering the globe since then. Dave said he has had 3 pro fights and lots of amatuer fights. I told him the only British fighters I knew were Ross Pointon and Mike Bisping because of The Ultimate Fighter. He said he was friends with Bisping and he was a really good guy. After that I went to the Chalong Gym to buy some whey. The gym was rocking out to Husker Du and seemed pretty nice, I may come back for some heavy lifting on Sundays. Trained muay thai in the afternoon and did okay. Lobert was my pad man for most of it and helped me alot correcting stance and form. After training everybody cleaned up and met back at camp to go watch the fights in Patong. Two of the trainers and Cesar from L.A. were fighting. Most people took a taxi but Julian and his girlfriend, U.K. Adam and his wife, and I rode bikes with me in the rear. Was a little bit too much fun ducking in and out of traffic trying to keep up. Crossing the hills into Patong Adam's front brakes seized up on a downhill and the bike went up and they fell off to the side. I slammed on my brakes and prepared for liftoff... luckily they weren't hurt and I stopped in time and it wasn't anyone's dead end. He had to walk it through the hills but was able to drive it once we got into Patong. We had to ask around for directions to stadium but eventually we made it and met up with everybody. Cesar was pumped for his fight. The whole boxing stadium smelled like my linament cream and there were a few hundred people there. A few fans but no air conditioning. Em the trainer had a really good fight and won, the other trainer whose name I forget knocked his opponent out. Cesar's fight was really good too and he pretty much manhandled the guy. He ended up knocking him out cold in the 2nd. After that most of us went to the Tiger Bar which is really a huge two story complex of bars and is the most popular nightlife spot in Patong. If you are in a group you don't get harrassed by the women so much, but if you have to go to the bathroom or something they will try and grab you. I was moving like Emmitt so its all good. We ended up going upstairs to the discotheque to dance awhile. Some of us got tired of dancing and sat outside and talked awhile. Elly (short for Eliza) and I went across the street to get some pizza. She is from Poland but has been living in London studying psychology. She said she will be an official shrink in 3 years. She doesn't like Poland or London and doesn't know where she is going to go. Gary, Luke and Maddox showed up and took the party up a notch. I had just met Maddox a.k.a. MadDog a little earlier that night, he is from Australia and has two more weeks here, after that he is joining the french foreign legion. We were getting a little rowdy and then out of nowhere he threw a fork across the restaurant. It flew right by this guy's head so he was escorted out. None of us knew why he did it and we were as surprised as anyone. The guy kept talking but we told him to simmer down and it was all good and we had a good time eating pizza. Elly and I shared a prawn and squid pizza which doesn't sound good but was quite tasty. After that we found everybody else outside having a good time... Aussie Adam said that Maddox had just broken his beer bottle and held it up to this guy's throat. I think the guy had just met one of the girl's from the camp. They didn't really know why he had done this either, Maddox said he was telling him not to rip off his friend. I like this guy. Everybody took a tuk tuk except for Em who hopped on my hog with me. Fighting for these Thai guys is just another day in the office. At the camp before the fight you wouldn't even be able to tell they were going to fight if you didn't know already. Em looks like he is in his early 20s and said he has had about 175 fights. He gets one day off after a fight but after that it is back to work.

Day 10

Woke up and headed down to get some groceries. They have two or three really big, modern super Walmart type stores on the island. They didn't open up until 9 so I drove around a little and found this open air sidewalk cafe. The restaurant was full but I was the only farang (foreigner) in the whole place. The wait staff didn't speak English either. My part of the island is definitely not as touristy as near the resorts. They served me 14 little dishes with one pair of pot sticker type things in each one. Some were similar to pot stickers, some were meatball type things, or sausages wrapped in seaweed, etc... You dipped them in 3 different sauces at the table. Very different and good. Also served with a teapot with herbal tea. I looked in and it had all the leaves and herbs still in it.

Sunday is typically a rest day, but since I had slept through training the day before I went back and trained awhile on my own. After training I went down to the spa that is within walking distance from our camp. It was really nice. I sat in the sauna and swam for a bit and when I came out I saw Aussie Adam from camp. We both got a traditional Thai massage which is kinda like acupressure while being twisted like a pretzel - the masseuse was up on the table with me for most of it I think. It was interesting but I'd like to go find a deep tissue sports type massage. Adam said he knew of one in Kata I may go try and find. For use of the sauna and the 1 hour massage it set me back 5 bucks. Adam got an additional hour of hot oil massage for about $2.50. I waited for him alternating between the sauna, steam room, jacuzzi and pool. The steam room was really nice with some herbal stuff being pumped in with the steam.

After the spa we went and checked out this market by our camp with lots vendors selling cooked and raw foods. We got some stir fried rice and pad thai for 10 baht (25 cents) a serving. Adam got a bunch of bananas for 10 baht. He said in Australia a hurricane had wiped our their banana farms and a bunch was about 17 Australian dollars... so he hadn't had bananas in a long time. After that we talked and ate back at the camp and passed out.

Day 9

On account of my late night and hell ride I slept right through training this morning. I was still pretty stiff from yesterdays training but I thought I would grab some lunch and go see Kata Beach and then come back in time for afternoon training. Had Pad Thai from the vendor at the temple again. Addicting. Less than a dollar for a restaurant sized portion. Actually every meal here is only one or two dollars. The drive to Kata was beautiful. Driving through these hills you get some really great views of the islands and the ocean. Im taking to this place like a gull takes to the wind.

Kata beach was really serene. No swimming allowed but the water was gorgeous. This is a surfing beach, I saw a billboard that they have a surfing competition here in September. There was shopping but it was less the den of thieves that Patong was. I stopped in one seaside restaurant for some sweet and sour chicken. It was served first with some rice or corn chip type things in different shapes and colors that you dip in this sweet but spicy chili sauce. The meal was good and dessert was a huge plate of watermelon, pineapple and banana cut into fancy shapes. Since I couldn't swim here I thought I would go ahead and head back to camp.

I got back about 2:00 and thought I had just enough time to rest my eyes before training. I ended up passing out until about 1:00 am. Possibly still have jet lag. I couldn't sleep at this point so I read some Leviathan and eventually fell back to sleep.

Here are some of the other guests that I have met at the camp: Will, the owner. He has lived here 11 years and the taxi driver said he used to play pro football in Florida. The way the taxi driver talked I was expecting Marlon Brando with an army in the jungle, but he is really cool. From Ireland: Gary and Kevin. From U.K.: Julian, Gaz, Dave, Adam. Julian has been in Thailand 7 or 8 months and been at this camp 2 or 3 weeks. Gaz is one of the MMA instructors and got here the day before I did. He has had 17 pro mma fights. Adam is here with his wife, they just got married and had a couple weeks of honeymoon before coming here, they are off to Australia for a month after this. From Australia: Christian, Daniel, and Adam. Christian has a broad background in many martial arts and owns a couple of schools in Australia. Daniel is the other mma instructor and said he was born in Australia but sounds like he has been travelling the world for many years. Adam is a retired pro rugby player who now owns two personal training studios in Australia. He said he grew up in Hong Kong but mentioned that he had lived in South Africa for awhile. He listed some extensive injuries from rugby but is mostly recovered now. From Poland: Elly who is getting ready for a pro fight in a couple of weeks. From L.A.: Cesar who fights Monday night. The guy he is fighting is the champion and belt holder at Patong Stadium and beat one of the trainers before. He said Will told him his opponent has broken guys arms and legs with his kicks.

There better not be any new slang when I get back.

Day 8

Woke up and walked down the street to try and find a payphone and breakfast. I couldnt get the phone to work so I picked up some baked goodies at a store and headed back to camp. Training started about 7 and went for a few hours. I did Muay Thai and did decent but feel a little out of it still. The training is very one on one with the trainers wrapping your hands and holding pads for you. A few trainers ask if I want to fight.

After training the office is open but their internet is down and I find out the phone is not international. I rented a motorbike and hit the streets. I bought a phone card but realized by this time its the middle of the night back home. I headed into Patong, which is a beach area on the other side of the island. Driving is a little crazy here but its a great way to see the island. You have to cross some hills that are in the middle of the island, but when you hit the top there are some spectacular views. I ate some grilled chicken from a street vendor and walked on the beach for a little while. I stopped at another little sidewalk café and had some chicken in green curry. Patong is very touristy and there are people walking around from all over. All of the vendors know English and there are shops selling everything. I saw posters everywhere advertising two upcoming nights of Muay Thai fights and recognized trainers and guests at Tiger Muay Thai on each poster.

I headed back and stopped at this mall Central Festival on the way back. This mall is Galleria sized and quite westernized. I also stopped at a Tesco which is a huge grocery store and picked up groceries. I got back to camp and trained again, this time MMA. We warmed up and then learned and drilled some guard passes before grappling. I was almost able to pull off the guard pass we learned during sparring but slipped. The cage floor was really slippery by the end as we were all dripping sweat as if we were in a sauna.

After class it rained a bit and cooled everything down. This is the low season which lasts until about October and means it rains more than the peak season. I knew this before coming here but have no problem with it. I cleaned up and wanted to see Patong again at night so I headed back. Very different at night. Lots of westerners out shopping, clubs and bars. All of the suit stores have guys that shake your hand while you walk by and don't let go and ask where you're from and try to get you to come in. The massage parlor girls all try to get you to come in too. Some of the bars you walk by have nothing but Thai girls dressed up and if you get too close sometimes they try to grab you. They aren't all hookers actually there are a lot of regular girls that just want a westerner boyfriend. Anyway I finally found a phone booth and was able to call home.

A freaking monsoon hit while I was walking around so I ducked into this bar with a live band to wait it out. The lead singer was Aussie and they were playing stuff like The Clash and Jet so it was a pretty good time. I thought the rain was letting up so I started heading back to my hog but then it hit again and I ended up in an Irish Bar. They were playing New Zealand vs. Australia rugby live so it actually worked out pretty good. Had a pint of Kilkenny and watched the game with John, who owned a hotel in New Zealand, and Craig, who lived in Australia and owned a cruise line. They had traveled quite extensively so we talked world markets and rugby and then the rain let up so I headed home. Actually it was still drizzling and pretty chilly on the road since I was still soaked from getting caught in the rain. I wasn't too big a fan of the rain at this point in time. Also I was almost out of gas but all the stations were closed so the whole way back (maybe 20 minutes or so) I was just praying I didn't run out of gas. I made it home though and slept like a champion.

Day 7

Flying in I was able to see how beautiful this island is. Recognized a lot of the scenery from some James Bond movies. I need to find out how I can post some photos. Spent about an hour getting through immigration at the Phuket airport, but once I did my taxi driver had a sign with my name and we were on our way. He took me to an atm at this really big Buddhist temple close to the camp and I had some amazing Pad Thai by a street vendor. It was about noon by the time I got to the camp and I talked to some of the guys who had just got done training. I got settled in to my bungalow which is awesome. The office was closed and I wanted to use their phone so I went back to take a nap until they opened it up again. I ended up not waking up until about midnight I wanted to go walk up the road to find a phone but didn't want to find out what was making those noises in the jungle. I turned on the tv for a little bit I have 2 or 3 Thai channels and the intro music to the local news was Block Rockin Beats by The Chemical Brothers and they also used Climbatize by Prodigy in a segment. Rawk.

Day 6

Singapore Airlines is great, as one of the fireman had told me it would be. Before we took off they came around with hot towels and blankets and slippers, and newspapers. There was wifi on the plane but this particular plane had no outlets at the economy class seats, some of the other models do. . Each seat has a tv in the seat in front, and via the remote you can choose between 80 movies, 105 tv shows, listen to 180 cds, or play 91 games. So I was pretty set. I think over the whole trip I watched Taxi Driver, a video about Bangkok, Arrested Development, Scrubs, The Office, 16 blocks and Lucky Number Slevin. I played some chess and listened to Massive Attack and Gnarls Barkley. There was also a flight tracker where you could see where the plane was and weather conditions and such. That was very cool to check in occasionally and see which countries we were flying over. The food was really good and they feed you pretty often. Before meals they would come around with hot towels, and at some point they brought toothbrushes and toothpaste. It took about 7 hours to get to Germany where I had a layover for a little bit. Nothing really to say about Frankfurt airport, lots of smokers. Took another 12 hours to get to the Singapore airport, which was amazing. Basically it would be like if they built DFW around The Stonebriar Mall. Lots of shops, a free movie theatre, free internet stations the works. Very clean and modern. For longer layovers they have a free tour of the city that takes about 2 hours. Huge airport but they have moving walkways just about anywhere you need to walk so its easy to navigate.

Day 5

Woke up and packed up and went down to this Parisian Bakery on the corner. Had a bagel and a breakfast sandwich that were both pretty good. I had made plans the night before to go checkout the Metropolitan Museum of Art with Marco, Mirko, Samuelle and Amelia, the Italians. It was another gorgeous morning in the park and there was a children's opera w/ Marrionettes on the big lawn when we walked by. The Met was very cool but huge. We all ended up getting split up right away. Then halfway through we all met up again. Within minutes of meeting up we were split up again. I had a great time walking around looking at the art. Mirko was most interested in the Chinese and Egyptian art, as he lives in Florence. I finished up with the museum and wandered the East Side for awhile, I walked by the Guggenheim but it was under construction. Amelia had said it wasn't worth the money to go in anyway. Walked back to the West Side through the park and just had a couple more things left that I wanted to do in NYC. I stopped into a coffee shop and pretended I was having thoughtless yet thought provoking banter about nothing with buddies. Just kidding but it was a cool coffee shop. Then on the way back to the hostel I stopped into a bakery for a black and white cookie. It was pretty good... look to the cookie. Got back to find Samuelle chilling on the stoop, he said he hadn't seen anybody since the 2nd time we got split up. As we were sitting there Marco walked up, he hadn't seen us or Mirko and thought he was the last one out of the Museum. Then the shuttle picked me up and I was off to the airport. JFK was crowded but I was early so I was able to find an outlet and pirate some wifi for awhile. One of the airlines paged Jakob Dylan while I was sitting there. Maybe his dad was looking for him.

Day 4

Woke up and chatted with the roommates for a while, the girls from Australia and Korea left so just the three of us now. Anaise woke up our Japanese roommate by getting close and yelling WAKEUP CHINESE! at him. Shes a character and it was hilarious in her French accent. Hit the road and it was a beautiful morning. Had been fairly hot and pretty muggy the past couple days. Today though it was beginning to feel like fall and I'm looking forward to that weather when I get back. I walked across Central Park and it was gorgeous this morning. The Metropolitan Museum of Art was closed today so I headed down to see the Museum of Modern Art.

I had an early lunch and finally got a hot dog and a big pretzel from a street vendor. The pretzel did end up having too much salt on it after all. A lot more people at the Moma than I expected. I had a good time just walking around with my headphones on and recognized a lot of the art from my Art History and Humanities courses. Definitely cool to get to see them in person.

I hadnt been to Soho yet so I headed down. The Empire State Building had too long of a wait to go up on the observation deck. I walked by the CBS studios and walked into the NBC studios but didnt feel like doing a tour, I saw the Rockefeller Center, which I recognized from TV. Also saw the Trump Tower, seems like this was where they did the apprentice? I saw MTV unloading stuff for the Video Music Awards at Radio City Music Hall

Crossing the street in Chelsea I saw a homeless guy locked in a forlorn stare putting something into his shopping cart. As I passed I saw that it was an intact but broken mirror he was looking into. I didnt want to be that guy that stopped to take a picture of it. It made me think of this photo at the Moma. It was of people walking in NYC going on about their busy days but the focus seemed to be on this bundled up blind homeless guy walking in the crowd. I wondered if this guy knows he is on exhibit in a museum. Stopped at Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village next to NYU and chilled there for awhile. There was a musician playing some sort of tribal wind instrument next to a fountain and it was really relaxing. I watched some chess games on these built-in chess tables and was invited to play a few times but I had to be on my way.

Finally got to Soho and it was interesting. A lot of old brick roads and bars and shops. There was some more stuff I wanted to see down near Wall Street so I kept walking. Everybody was getting off work in the Financial District and I was going against the flow of the crowd. Ended up in Battery Park on the southern tip of the Island facing the Statue of Liberty. It was really nice there with the sun and the water so I chilled out a bit and watched some of the ferries come in.

About 7:00 decided to take a bus back home. A family from England got on and I chatted with them for a good while on the way back. The dad lived in New Jersey and was getting remarried so the son and daughter and some friends were just in town for the wedding. We talked rugby for awhile, the son had played League and the father and daughter had played Union and they disagreed about which had fitter players and harder tackles. The son is now a taxi driver in a small town. He was well traveled though and said he had worked on a ranch in Africa for awhile. He said it was huge and it took a month to make a round checking the fences. The daughter asked if she could have my hat when she first sat down and would check in occasionally to see if I changed my mind. They were both about my age and the son said he had a sofa for me if I ever make it that way. He said it was really serene out in the countryside and he always wanted to come to Texas because he pictures he liked Little House on the Prairie and thats what he pictures.

I got off the bus on the east side and cut across the park right about dusk. It was really pretty around the lake. There were tons of people jogging around the lake and a lot of people jogging and biking through the park. As I came out of the park there was a guy that looked like Big Pun with his windows down blaring that Holiday Road song from the National Lampoons Vacation. Strange song to be jamming out to but it got me in the mood for the trip tomorrow.

Grabbed some dinner and hung out on the stoop with everybody. Met some guys that just got here from Switzerland. He asked what dead end meant. He said they had gotten lost and pointed toward Harlem and said that they were terrified and thought they were going to be killed for being white. Then they saw a sign that said dead end and he said "maaaan we just thought, well this is our end". I laughed for probably too long at that and apologized. He seemed pretty shaken. While we were sitting out there some girls arrived from Russia, and I met more girls from Australia and Italy that have checked in. Have also met other people staying here from Poland and Spain and Scotland.

Some people went off to go to a club and I showed the rest how to get up on the roof. Everybody loved it up there and we had a blast hanging out, probably fifteen people total. We talked art for awhile and there was a movement in Germany similar to romanticism but they couldn't think of the translation in English. In German it means something like a storm that you cant avoid. I guessed a lot of art movements and artists but they didn't think any of them was this particular one and I dont know if I have heard of this one. Everyone was educated so it was cool. Spent a lot of time talking to Amelia, from Italy. She was in Toronto for an HIV convention and came to check out the city. She is an immunologist and said she has had the title Dr. for four years but will be done at her university in November. After spending a year in Africa for HIV she is leaning towards specializing in it. She looks like a young Ashley Judd. Simone from Switzerland said he got in a fight with a guy that did Thai boxing a few years ago. He said he couldn't do anything but try to cover his face while the guy was landing elbows and knees.