Thailand – The first Muay Thai title fight

December 16-19

Hello everyone!

To those of me who follow my travels on Facebook and saw that I was in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on these dates – that was a hex to fool some people. You’ll see why in later blogs. Here is what really happened…

 

I left Astana on a dark and dim Saturday evening. It was -42’C. 24 hours later I was in bright and bonkers Bangkok. It was +35’C. From one extreme to another, and a brutal awakening to what I have in store for the next two weeks. Brutality only matched by a flying downwards elbow to the neck in a Muay Thai boxing match.

My final experience of the cold was in Almaty airport. Admittedly it was a mere -18’C there, but that does not excuse Air Astana making people dressed in clothes suitable for Thailand line up outside the jet to check their tickets. This is normally done inside, but inexplicably they thought it was a good idea to let us feel the chill one more time before leaving. I blame jealousy.

Bangkok is a massive, complex and hectic supercity. There are many things to do and see. Having been here a few times, and with the knowledge of my next destination in mind, I used my time here to relax and catch up on some of the things that I have missed in Kazakhstan. Like Subway. And James Bond.

The cinematic experience in Bangkok is actually fairly unique. The cinema I went to had a mere six seats in each row, and not too many rows either. This is due to the size of the things. Huge. (NB The picture below is from a different cinema, but the idea is the same) Oh, and the fact that they recline. It was a very comfortable setting, made more so by the welcome drink you receive before the show. It’s not quite paradise, though. The fact that you are provided with a blanket when you enter hints at what is to come. Mainly, the fact that I felt like I had gone back to Astana. Such was the strength and ferocity of the air conditioning, I actually spent quite a lot of time fidgeting with my blanket to keep myself warm.

The other intriguing aspect of watching a film in Bangkok is that they play the King’s Anthem before the start of every showing. The King is revered here, and is a very popular man in Thailand.

Another popular aspect of Thailand, for travellers at least, is the infamous and chaotic Khao San Road. I met some people in the hostel and we traversed there for some fun. This came in the form of buckets of gin, but the most bizarre aspect of our time there were posted on wooden boards and carried around by local sellers. Wristbands. Written in English. Often the most vulgar English you could find. I’ll leave you to read them for yourselves. More than anything, it made me wonder who on earth came up with some of the phrases you see in the picture below, and what on earth possessed them to make them into a product.

The main product I enjoyed in Thailand was the food. The spices of Thai cuisine magnify all of your senses, and create a buzz in your body as you eat it. Sometimes the buzz is very pleasurable, yet other times it can be a little too much. Thai food is notoriously spicy. I enjoy spicy dishes and, after 3 months of bland plov and manty, was craving some ‘pep’ on my plate. The first meal I had, however, turned me the colour of the tom yam soup I was eating. The chef of this roadside café I was eating in found it particularly amusing, especially when I told her to make it even hotter.

Soup is often the dish of the day in Thailand. I probably had a soup every day, and often followed this by lying in the surprisingly tranquil and green Lumpini Park. It was a lovely place to relax and read, seemingly a world away from the traffic and terror that are Bangkok’s roads nearby.

Lumpini is an area often visited by foreigners, but for a very different reason. Indeed, the reason would be the very antonym of tranquility. It is the home of Muay Thai boxing. Boxing, but with your hands…and feet…and knees…and elbows…

We watched this on my final night, though it was being held in an area close to where I went to the cinema. The pre-fight rituals were fascinating – lots of praying and touching of ropes. It was a moment of calm before a wild and violent storm. The atmosphere and tempo of the fights seemed to be dictated by the drummers on the side of the ring as much as the fighters within it. When they played Jingle Bells, for example, it was evident that there was a relative lull in the action.

We actually saw a world title fight, for the crown of the best female welterweight Muay Thai boxer. It was won by a frightening Russian woman who, when her hair came undone from her bun, resembled the terrifying girl from The Ring. She dominated this particular ring, and deservedly took home the belt after pummelling her local opponent close to submission.

The notion of hearing Jingle Bells when sweating in temperatures above 30’C was difficult to comprehend, but I have been here before when in Singapore. Christmas decorations just don’t quite seem to fit with people wearing shorts, but I’m sure people from this side of the globe and the southern hemisphere are comfortable enough with it. It is nice to be reminded that Christmas is just around the corner.

 

Though it has been nice, I won’t be spending Christmas in Thailand. I’ll be nextdoor. No, not Vietnam. Not Laos, nor indeed Cambodia or Malaysia. Where, you ask? The other one. The one no one knows about. The one that, until it opened up a wee bit two years ago, you couldn’t really go to. Next stop, following getting the visa in Bangkok…Myanmar. Burma. Time to take a trip back in time…

 Love you all

Matt

Kazakhstan – The first snow angels

December 1-3

 Hello everyone!

 

 One of the many perks of working in Kazakhstan is the remarkable number of public holidays offered to its citizens. We had another one, a new one, on December 1^st, resulting in us having a long weekend. This was the opportunity we had been waiting for – the chance to go and play in the snow.

 

December 1^st was made a national holiday this year. It is to celebrate President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s inaugural election in 1991, which was on this date. It falls on a Saturday this year, but this simply means that the next working day is a public holiday. We thus had the Monday off school.

 

Whether you agree with the idea of a national leader introducing national holidays or not is another question. We, however, were not going to let the opportunity to get away from the flat lands of Astana pass easily. Three of us thus sped to the airport on Friday night and just about made it in time for our flight to Kazakhstan’s other major city, Almaty. We arrived at the airport 30 minutes before departure. It is safe to assume that, if this scenario was replicated in the U.K., we would not have got on the plane. It can be nice to have a less rigid structure at times.

 

From up north, Almaty is viewed as the city in Kazakhstan with a bit more character, and also as being a little bit more dangerous. It would be difficult to top Astana, which is one of the safest cities I have lived in. This crossed our minds when, after having initial difficulties when haggling with local taxi drivers, a Kazakh man got our attention in English and said that his brother was coming to pick us up, and that we could join them. Free of charge. Any reservations we had were quickly erased when in conversation with him, and we decided to trust our instincts by trusting him. We were soon to realise that this was the best decision of our weekend.

 

The man, named Talgat, and his brother got us to the apartment we had rented, which was no mean feat as the snow began to fall more heavily. They were then kind enough to wait for the landlady to arrive, before saying to us that they were more than happy to help us at any time during our trip. They had already gone above and beyond, considering they refused any offers for remuneration, and it transpired the following day that their assistance would prove to be invaluable.

 

We had gone to Almaty with a mission objective of skiing in the Tian Shan mountain range to the south and east of the city, close to the border with Kyrgyzstan. The main resort is called Chimbulak, about 25km south of the old capital. We had been warned that, due to a relatively mild winter up to this point, it may not be open when we arrived. It was thus somewhat ironic that the resort wasn’t open when we arrived for the completely opposite reason.

 

I have already mentioned the heavy snowfall. When being driven home at about 5am after a night in a packed indie bar it was almost impossible to see out of the windscreen. This was due to the snow, rather than any volume of alcohol that had been consumed. What we woke up to on Saturday lunchtime was an astounding sight.

 

We have been told that it was the worst snow to hit Almaty since 1998. Trees were scattered over roads, having been weighed down irrecoverably by the white powder. Cars and even snow ploughs were stuck due to the sheer amount of snow that had settled. It was great fun for us to play in, though it made the city a much more precarious place. It also temporarily closed the airport, meaning that our friend Lucy, who was flying down on the Saturday, was delayed for a few hours and arrived with her bags stuck in the hold of her plane. She was lucky that, like us, she had also met a friendly English speaker.

 

 

We spent our Saturday evening eating sumptuous food in a French restaurant before heading to the 26^th floor of Hotel Kazakhstan. It is supposed to offer some of the best views of the city, but unfortunately a thick white blanket of snow was all our eyes could gaze upon. The bar has a drink called the Barfly Fashion, one of the stronger drinks I have had this year, and also possesses some bizarre, scantily-clad dancers on podiums. Who did not fit into the vibe of this classy bar one single iota. We didn’t fit in too much either, so soon decided to make snow angels outside instead.

 

We did get our view of the city the following morning, when the snowstorm had relented sufficiently to pop in a cable car to the top of the Kok Tobe hill. The cloud covering Almaty had now reverted to its normal, nasty grey. The pollution you can see from up above is very worrying.

 

As with the old BBC show, today was due to be Ski Sunday. An avalanche warning had meant that Chimbulak was closed all weekend. After getting in touch with Talgat, he managed to find out that another smaller resort, called Tabagan, was open. A car was flagged down, and within an hour we were at the bottom of a gentle slope. Gentle, yet imposing to ski novices such as ourselves.

I have skied once before. Those who were there will remember the time in Austria when it took me an hour-and-a-half to get down a 10 minute course, and that there was brief talk of having to send a rescue team after me. This chastening experience made me the second most experienced skier of the four, meaning that a teacher was very necessary in order to make our experience an enjoyable one.

 

Our skiing was eventful. The highlight for the rest of our gang was when I lost my bearings and went down the hill bottom first. I then seemed to be squatting lower and lower, before eventually stopping. By crashing into a stationary snowboarder. With my bum. The girls all found it hilarious. Aside from that, my skiing seems to have improved, and it was very enjoyable at the end.

This was by no means the only activity Almaty had to offer us on the Sunday. We had made contact with Talgat, and it transpired that he and the man who had helped Lucy were best friends from university. We were driven up to the mountains to eat some of the finest shashlyk this country has to offer. Lots of it, too. It was a lovely evening, and showed us the positives of trusting well-meaning strangers who simply want to show off the best of their country.

 

This has been one of the most eventful, action-packed and most entertaining weekends I have had in the steppe. The attractions of Almaty have been lovely, especially when draped in a thick blanket of snow, but it has been the locals who have made this trip particularly special. Their hospitality and passion for their country and culture is inspiring, and makes me wish that the patriotism engendered by events in Britain this year will become more permanent. Maybe the British government need to introduce more public holidays!

 

 

Love you all

Matt

Kazakhstan – The first Movember

November

 Hello everyone!

 November is a month to raise money for charity, and raise the upper lip hair on male members of society. ‘Movember’ is an annual, month-long event involving the growing of moustaches during November to raise awareness of prostate cancer and other male cancer charities. The goal of Movember is to "change the face of men's health."

 

It is often necessary to raise spirits in a cold, harsh climate such as this. However, Astana has seemed strangely mild in comparison to last year. It might well be that we’re more prepared second time around. However, it has taken longer for the river to freeze, and I haven’t had to buy a proper winter hat until the middle of this month.

 

We haven’t had too many new experiences this month. Instead, we have continued our traditions from 2012 and revisited old favourites. We soared up the Bayterek…

 

…watched break-dancers in the world’s largest shopping tent, the Khan Shatyr…

 

…got lost rambling around in the snow…

 

…and had our traditional Thanksgiving meal…of Indian food.

 

Thanksgiving was one of the more novel aspects of this otherwise monotonous and work-heavy November. We decided to spend some of it chunkin’ pumpkins – those who have watched Modern Family will understand…

 

 

 

The other novel aspect was the facial hair that was formulating fast underneath my nose. It worked a treat for our day of fancy dress, Humanities Day. I feel that it made me become a more legitimate Victorian gentleman, though others have pointed out that I bore a striking resemblance to an old American president…

 

Alas, November 30^th came, and the moustaches amongst our school disappeared into frothy bowls of warm water. In sum, having a moustache is fun but can also get irritating, especially when drinking milky products or eating soup. We have raised awareness for a charity that may not have had significant publicity in this country before, and hopefully we truly can "change the face of men's health." You can help by donating to http://uk.movember.com/team/867029.

Love you all

Matt