Blackjack

Nothing really feels the same in Thailand. At home I can normally get some kind of sense about me that it's my birthday but here it just seems so out of place. Not that that made it any less fun. But first, the Muay Thai fight . . . On one of my friend Greg Bonney's last days here, he and I went to a Muay Thai fight. It was definitely something that I had to do here despite the fact that it is pretty expensive (around US$30). We got beers and caught the oddest cab ever--pretty much every cab here is a fairly new Toyota Corolla, this one was, well, I'm not entirely sure, but it wasn't a Corolla. It was bigger, had nicer seats and AC vents in the back seat. Baller to say the least. We got to the fight about an hour late but we figured sitting through 3 hours of it would be a bit much--we learned very quickly how wrong we were. After buying tickets in the cheapest seats available we hiked up the concrete stairs to the sounds of cheering Thais and traditional Thai music playing at the penacle of the 4th round of the second fight. We sat in the front row of the vacant steps which comprised thrid class, a few foriegners ended up joining us as the fight went on, but all of the Thais were in second class, just in front of us, separated by a chain-link fence. They were a spectacle unto themselves--shouting out bets, beating on the banisters in front of them, waving their arms and, here's the kicker, some of them were carrying 2' by 2' pieces of plywood completely covered in cell phones, presumably 'broadcasting' the fight and possibly taking bets or something. It was thrilling just watching them do their thing. There were 7 fights total, and out of all the competitors the heaviest weighed 135 pounds, which was crazy. The first really, really interesting fight was between these two 'heavy weights'. The guy in the red was so obviously the better fighter, but the guy in the blue was always the aggressor. Red easily knocked down blue at least 7 times or so by the 4th round and he appeared to be virtually unscathed and lively, not at all out of energy. Then, while the two were in one of those close range bear-hug type situations that boxers often seem to get themselves into, blue came out of nowhere with an elbow to the face. Red fell over, he tried to get up a few times but he was obviously experiencing something like a concussion, really confused and all. The referee let him try a few times before letting his team come and rescue him and declaring blue the winner. Crazy match. The gamblers went wild, I'm sure, I was far too distracted by my own surprise to notice theirs. One of the things I loved about the fights was that they played traditional music throughout the whole thing, and I'm pretty sure that if I listened to it now I'd get pretty pumped up, which is kinda weird. They also waste no time between matches. The winner is declared, his picture is taken, the new boxers are announced as they come into the ring and are de-robed, and after they're both introduced some slower traditional music plays and the two men do what looks like a mix between strecthing exercises, prayer rituals and dancing for a few minutes. This was really interesting, they all did virtually the same thing and I honestly couldn't tell whether it was more for show or for the genuine benefit of stretching.
Back to my birthday . . . after finally getting out of class at 8pm--yes, I was in class from 6-8 every day for two weeks--my friends and I hurried home to change and head out to a late dinner of Mexican food in the city before heading out to a nice club called Beds Supper Club to take advantage of a promotion they were having that night (free entry and 3 free drinks before 11pm for ladies, woo!) We had some trouble finding the restaurant that we originally wanted to go to, so we just went to another 24 hour Mexican place near Beds--we went in and ordered, then had to run over to the club to get in free and get our hands stamped before 11. The food was delicious, as was the mango margarita, and Beds was so much fun. There are actual beds in the place and its decor is all really modern and streamlined. We ended the night a little early to make it back in time to wake up in time for early morning class the next day--another 13 hour day at Mahidol.

Malaysia has been really crazy--a whirlwind tour of different universities, NGOs and hospitals looking at social inequalities in healthcare. The seminars are so informative and the people we're meeting are so intelligent, but a lot of times we're discussing things I know very little about for so long that a lot of it goes over my head. We've been taking some interesting tours as well, one of Penang, Kuala Lumpur and Malaka--all very beautiful. KL is so modern and the infrastructure is so great that I often find it easy to forget where I am, because I could easily be in the US. Many more people here speak English than in Thailand.