#67 Travel to Thailand

Very large Buddha inside a Wat in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Getting the chance to visit Thailand was a life changing and soulful experience for me. It's something I never thought that I would have the opportunity to experience. This trips good fortune found me through a dear friend of mine, Sylvie Von Duuglas-Ittu who is currently living and fighting Muay Thai professionally in Chiang Mai. Before Sylvie embarked on her journey a little over a year ago we had played with the idea of me making the 9,000 mile trip to visit her. But it was through my mother's support and persistence I found the courage to buy a plane ticket and make the trip solo.

Buddhist prayer bells at Wat Prathat Doi Suthop

Young girl at Wat Prathat Doi Suthop

Wat Prathat Doi Suthop

The purpose of the trip was to spend time with my friend Sylvie and also to immerse myself in training Muay Thai. I am an amateur Muay Thai fighter in the United States and getting to train on Thai soil is comparable to visiting Mecca. It's one of the holiest places for a fighter. While there I trained at Lanna Muay Thai camp for upwards of 7 hours a day through two daily sessions. The sessions where intense but enlightening. The amount of knowledge I received was like drinking water from a fire hose.

My Ugly Mug during training

Spinning Elbows with Den

Sylvie and I in the ring after training - Batman and Robyn

To cap off of the training experience, towards the end of my trip I took a full rules Muay Thai fight with a tough and savvy fighter. The girl I fought was a former channel 7 champ and had over 40+ fights. I won the fight in the 5th round with an elbow knockout. It was a sincere highlight of my trip not only because I won but because the entire experience was challenging and as pure as they come. To see additional photographs and read more about my experience of fighting in Thailand follow this link: #114 Fight in Another Country.

Some photos from my fight

Sylvie cornering me right before the 5th round. Photo credit Kevin Von Duuglas-Ittu.

Sylvie and I trained almost everyday of my trip but for a few hours in the middle of the day when we would take a break from training we would jet around town on her scooter exploring the sites and soaking up the culture. Thailand is an amazing place. Time moves epically slow there yet incredibly fast at the same time creating this Never Never Land vortex. Things are sabai sabai (thai for relaxed) and the people are overtly friendly. I spent the last week of my trip trying to find a way for me to prolong my trip. I'm not sure anyone is really ever ready to leave Thailand which would explain the large number of expats. Those expats and other visitors really do make Chiang Mai a cultural melting pot. At any given time while training at the gym or walking through the night market there are people from all over world...Australia, New Zealand, England, Scotland, Korea, Singapore, India, Belgium, Canada, France ect. I met so many interesting and good hearted people.

                                        Street Market                                        Khao Soi

Ganesha                                                Rotee

Delicious dinners                               Ancient Statue

Sylvie made sure I got to get out and experience as much as I could when we were not training. We visited a handful of Wats (temples) and we managed to get blessed by a monk which was beyond awesome. She took me to the jungle so we could ride an elephant! See our awesome pictures and read about that here. We also snuggled with full size Bengal tigers and fed some cubs! Follow this link to read about that and see the pictures. And the food was exotic and intoxicating. I'm not sure how I will ever live with out Khao Soi (a curry dish that is served in Northern Thailand) or Rotee which is basically a fried dough filled with bananas and drizzled with condensed milk, magic and unicorn dust. My favorite breakfast spot was the Cafe Mong Pearl and my favorite dinner spot was Lemongrass. But all the places I ate were amazing and Sylvie and Kevin did an awesome job exposing me to as much culinary gluttony I could handle.



Wat Lok Mali

Buddha at Wat Lok Mali

Wat Morn Thean

Fasting Buddha at Wat Umong

Thailand was the first place that I have traveled to in years that I wasn't ready to leave when I did and I don't mean physically.....I mean spiritually. I never thought in my life I would get the opportunity to go to Thailand and now I know that I'll never not go back. On my next trip I'd really like to make it up to Chiang Rai, I'd like to go fishing and maybe even make it down to the beaches in Phuket. All new goals for the ever growing bucket list!!

Check out my other adventures in Thailand at the links below:

#111 Blow into the Trunk of an Elephant

#139 Pet a Lion or Tiger and not get Mauled

#114 Fight in Another Country

#114 Fight In Another Country

4 year old ninja me

As long as I can remember I have been enamored with martial arts. As a young child I begged my mother to let me take karate and I began formal lessons when I was 4 years old. By the age of 9 I had earned my first degree black belt. I trained daily until I was a teenager when life finally got in the way. I stopped training but always felt that something was missing in my life. When I was 24 I started training again but instead of taking traditional karate classes I joined a mixed martial arts school. Within a year I had my first golden gloves boxing match. One fight turned into two and then five and then ten and so on and so on.

Getting my hands wrapped for war back in the states

Although fighting is a physical chess match it is about so much more than punching and kicking. For me it gives me the platform to test myself physically, mentally and emotionally. Each bout and opponent brings it's own challenges to overcome. I've learned through fighting to be patient, to control my emotions, to accept humility and how to never, no matter what give up or give in. When you walk in the ring you walk in by yourself and you either succeed or fail on your own accord. There is no one else to blame....it's true accountability. Each and every time I leave the ring I leave a different person and fighter than I was when I climbed in through the ropes. That growth although occasionally painful is beautiful and pure.

Muay Thai Fight in Pennsylvania

I love all combat sports but my personal favorite is Muay Thai. Muay Thai comes from Thailand and is known as the art of the 8 limbs as you can use both hands, legs, knees and elbows to strike your opponent. It is the most aggressive form of kickboxing. Getting the opportunity to train and fight in Thailand is like traveling to Mecca for all Muay Thai practitioners. It's one of the holiest places a fighter can train and fight and to be honest it's something I never thought I would get to experience. When I added "Fight in Another Country" to my bucket list I honestly thought that maybe...just maybe I'd get to fight in Canada someday. Never in a million years did I think #114 would get put in the books in Thailand.

Thailand Pre-Fight Oil Massage

Thailand Pre-Fight Oil Massage

If it wasn't for my dear friend Sylvie Von Duuglas-Ittu I would have never had the opportunity to check this off my list in Thailand. Sylvie is currently living in Chiang Mai pursuing her dream of being a full time professional fighter.  Before she left on her voyage a year ago we discussed me coming out at some point to stay with her and train. It took about a year but we finally made it happen. I was aware a few weeks in advance that I would be fighting for sure while in Chiang Mai but only shared the information with a small select group of people. Frankly....I didn't want my mother worried sick the entire time I was there. Besides as my mother she's pretty used to the "Mom, don't be mad BUT...." phone call.

Closing the ring

Receiving my pre-fight blessing from Den

The fight

I trained for 8 or 9 full days before I fought. Training days are 7 hours long and split up between a morning and evening session. The training is grueling but the amount of technique and information you receive is overwhelming. I would get on a plane tomorrow and go back if I could. It's that good.

Not my blood....

Taking instruction in my corner between rounds

Spectators and gamblers looking on

Were going for a ride

I fought a girl who was the former channel 7 champ. She was a lefty with 40+ fights. Our fight was a good fight and I felt we complimented each others skill set well. The two goals I had set for myself for this specific fight was to cut hard angles and land an elbow. In the United States as an amateur fighter very rarely are you allowed to throw elbows so having the opportunity to throw them was a big deal. I had specifically trained them all week with Den. Thankfully I managed to complete both goals multiple times. In the fourth round I finally let go and let the elbows fly. Towards the end of that round I hit her with some strong elbow combinations followed by a knee kick to the head which earned a standing 8 count. She rallied back hard in the fifth before I finished the fight with a well placed elbow knocking her out and knocking this off my list.

My corner: Neung to the far left in back in the white T-shirt (he is a WBC world champion boxer), Sylvie up front in the dapper vest, Little Neung in the Pirates hat, Off behind him, Den (over 300 pro fights) in the orange Lanna shirt and Deang hiding behind him.

Sylvie in the corner with me right before the 5th round. (Photo credit Kevin Von Duuglass-Ittu)

I did a guest blog on my experience fighting in Thailand on 8limbs.us. It gets much more indepth about the challenges I faced in this fight and how I prepared ect. Click here to read that post.

Be sure to check out my other bucket list blog posts from Thailand:

#111 Blow into the Trunk of an Elephant

#139 Pet a Lion or Tiger and not get Mauled

#67 Travel to Thailand

In addition check out Michael White's Muay Thai Photography facebook page. He is a fantastic photographer that I commissioned to shoot my fight. If your ever in Chiang Mai and need a photographer look him up!!!

#139 Pet a Lion or Tiger and Not Get Mauled

Sylvie the tiger whisperer

Don't even ask me why this is on my bucket list because it's ridiculous and frightening as hell. If I had to self diagnose I'd say it's on here because it could kill me therefore making it fun??  I don't know for sure but it's adventurous and hard to do so it finds itself appropriately at slot #139.

I'm not really sure you could ever snuggle an adult tiger in the United States. There are entirely too many rules and regulations here. So while on my trip to Thailand my buddy Sylvie took me to a place in Chiang Mai called Tiger Kingdom where the practice of petting and snuggling up on adult Bengal tigers is totally acceptable. When Sylvie told me the name of the place we would be going I did some quick research and discovered they had 3 serious maulings on tourists in the past 18 months. You would think this would deter me....yea...no not at all. It however did put the fear of god into me about my visit.

When we arrived at the facility they offered packages of visiting various sized tigers. They had little cubs, small tigers, medium sized teenager tigers and then full fledged adults. The most expensive being the cubs and the cheapest being the adults. It totally freaked me out that the ones that can actually maul you or rip half your face off with one clean swipe are the cheapest and most financially accessible to visit. WTH? We choose to visit the adults, teenagers and cubs.

I'll rub your butt....please don't eat my face. 

Being locked in a cage with 3 or more Bengal Tigers is pretty crazy and exhilarating. But you have to keep calm because they will absolutely pick up on how you feel. Sylvie knew I was a bit nervous and quickly reminded me not to blow into the tigers face like I had the elephants trunk on an earlier excursion. Hilarious, Sylvie. Laugh it up.

This was the scariest moment of my life. Sylvie basically rode the thing around the yard making her that much more scary. 

The tigers are huge and they feel like....well....rugs. But when you are with them its awe-inspiring. When you touch them you can feel their energy and life force. It's powerful. It's also scary to know the only thing protecting you if it decides to use it's energy to eat you is a Thai guy with an 8 inch bamboo stick.

Belly rubs

Visiting the teenagers was less scary then the adults and visiting the cubs was entertaining as hell. One cub was clearly the most ill behaved and would not stop attacking the other cubs therefore sealing him in as our favorite. His antics were rather amusing but I noted I was especially happy to have met this tiger while he was a baby rather than when he was full grown.

Also, while there we visited the sole Lion on the premises. You are not allowed to pet this Lion and he is kept just out of reach. He was breathtakingly handsome and his contrast to the tigers was intoxicating. He had such a sense of power I don't think I would have wanted to pet him even if I could have. But lucky for me snuggling with the tigers was enough to get #139 Pet a Lion or Tiger and Not Get Mauled into the books and officially checked off the list.

Read about my other excursions and bucket list items completed in Thailand:

#111 Blow into the Trunk of an Elephant
#67 Travel to Thailand
#114 Fight in Another Country