Day 20: Nothing significant sticks out...Kru Daam is sick so I've been hitting pads with Kru Mee. Kru Mee prides himself over his placing defense (aka "safety") over offense, saying that's what won him his fights. I enjoy these lessons in "safety," defending myself against a man the size of a small water buffalo. He doesn't throw any heat but he gives you a good reason to use your eye. His padholding is remniscient of my trainer, Bill's style minus the getting whomped. Kru Mee focuses on simple punching, tons of strong side kicks and as I previously mentioned, defensive techniques first and foremost. I can't even begin to type the hilarity that ensues when he gets excited, I'd go out on a limb and say his English...err...his ability to get his point across is the best at the camp. He has a few buzzwords/phrases that make things hilarious and easy to understand: "safety" or defense, "dead" or knocked out, "wun-hunnit puh-sent!" or 100% aka a sure thing / best choice, "supah-stah!" is pretty self-explanatory, "fight IQ, no tingtong" or smart fighter, not a brawler...the list goes on. I'll try my best to get a video of him explaining things. He is a very blunt and simple man, no surprises here. He doesn't like it, he makes sure you know....again and again...ask Jen.
Day 21: Brendan, Doug and I did our morning training, ate quickly, said our goodbyes to the English dudes as they continued their journey further into the Land of Smiles and then headed out to Wat Bang Phra with Pii A, Jun and Bai Pai. In classic Pii A fashion, he made sure we ate an hour after breakfast before hitting the Wat. After some excellent noodles, fried banana and fried potato sticks, he made it to the Wat safely.
Pii A's driving is something to experience before you die...most likely it will be the reason you die. This man drives wild even for Thailand's standards. In this country, the size of your vehicle determines your right of way. Pii A drives a nice extended cab turbo pickup with a cab so he commands most of the road unless there is some wild bus driver or supply truck on the road. Regardless of the lane markings, Pii A gets to where he needs to go in record time, every time.
Anywho, we get to the Wat and mill around for a bit. Jun is very familiar with the process so he takes us to the third level of the building where the tattoos are done. The first two floors have the monks who, for the donation plus twenty five baht will give you what they think you should get and where you should get it while the third floor has a guy who charges based on the design and placement of your choice as well as another monk who seemed only be tattooing women. Brendan and I had already made up our minds on going back down to the first floor to keep it as traditional as possible for the first time around. The first sak yant given is almost always the Gao Yord or Nine Spires on the base of the neck. We waited, sitting on the tile floor watching all the other Thai men get different tattoos, one man just getting a blessing as he was already completely covered on the top half of his torso. There were a handful of men, devotees I would venture a guess, that stayed off to the side whose sole task was to hold the skin taut of the person getting tattooed. The monk fired through several sak yant with ease, some on ribcages, legs, different spots on the back - all on Thai men with anywhere from one or two yants to men running out of spaces to put them.
The monk took time inbetween yants to light up a cigarette, check his phone and recieve gifts from some younger monks who seemed to be passing through for a moment to watch his work. Brendan was up first, all the Thai men in wait staring at his western tattooed skin when he took off his shirt. They particularly liked the bird on his arm, haha. Within 10 minutes, the monk had finished and began blessing the yant, blowing on it and finally slapping brenda in the ribs twice to signify completion. I followed suit afterwards and quickly realized getting a steel rod jabbed into my spine was about as fun as it sounds. When the rod wasn't clacking against my spine, it wasn't too bad. The buzz and constant poking of a tattoo gun is a little easier than intermittitent poking from the stick. Brendan likened the spine poking portion to hurting "more than eight bitches in a bitch boat." I honestly have no idea what that means but this is the second time on the trip he's said it and all I can think of is 8 ex-girlfriends nagging you to row faster in a hurricane at sea.After the Wat...you guessed it, we got more food. Pii A likes to eat, and he likes to eat frequently. He also likes to subject him to the hottest possible food ever but damn, is it fantastic every time. He tends to sweat feverishly but like a Pii Boss, he will continue to inhale whatever's infront of him. We were all kind of confused when we stopped again thinking this was our dinner which would've been totally fine. Doug asked Pii A if Mama wasn't cooking tonight to which Pii A looked at Doug kind of confused and said "Mama cook, Mama cook, no problem!" Meals on meals on meals.
A pretty gnarly storm rolled in during the afternoon and it rained hard for quite some time, threatening to ruin typical Thursday night market festivities. Not much time was spent there as the power kept getting knocked out and not many booths were still up due to the inclement weather. The thunder would roll through the entire night making some nice background noise to fall asleep to.
Pii A also made sure that we didn't train this afternoon or the next morning as to not ruin our sak yants.
Day 22: Morning, nada. No training = lumpfest. Rest dem bones. Afternoon session rolls around and Pii A makes sure, first thing, he applies vaseline to our sak yants as to keep them in good shape. Whadda guy, I says. That's right there is a good summation of Pii A, he is always looking out for our best interest. Partly because this is his job, making sure we are happy so we A) comeback and B) spread the good word. I also believe the other part is his good nature. The guy is so damn easy to get along with and makes you feel like you're priority number 1. I will of course go into this more in the 'Pii A entry' I keep saying I'm going to do.
I managed to eat 20 grilled bananas in between morning and afternoon sessions making afternoon session just brutal for me. Leadbelly Mainini. I can't remember if much was done after. We made plans to go to the saunas on Sunday which will be nice.
Day 23: Today. Ran both AM and PM sessions. Ran with just Jimmy in the AM session, we oggled the dead cow for a little bit and scooted home. Apparently he is fighting his 3rd fight after we leave, bummed I can't see it. He's definetly my favorite goofball here, it's also interesting watching these guys actually be formed into fighters as I've only met accomplished younger fighters in my stay at the last camp and this camp. Speaking of Taam La is fighting at Raja on Monday. He's a quiet one for the most part, packs a serious right hand. I think he is somewhere in the realm of 13 - 15 years old and already has KO's on his record. While it's not unheard of, slaying humans when you weigh only as much as a grown man's lower half is a pretty awesome feat. 
We ate some frog today for dinner. I got the pleasure of watching the guys prepare it in all their barbaric glory. If you're friends with me on FB, you can catch the video. Truly brutal, definitely not for the faint of heart. Apirak was the mastermind behind this serious dish. Very hot, tasted like chicken (yeah, what they say is true apparently?) and kind of a pain in the butt to eat as you have to seperate what little bit of meat there is from the little bones in it. 
Attempted to work on my tones with Pii A and Jun and Jen and I attempted to help them with their english. It was determined that her being from New York and my Boston accent aren't really conducive to helping someone understand the English language especially when we leave letters out of words.Tomorrow: Sauna time.
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