LIsa's brother wants a pair of Muay Thai boxing shorts. Muay Thai is kickboxing. The people who do this are usually small, ripped, and fierce. Lisa sees some shorts at a store, and instantly makes friends with Lin, the shopkeeper. Lin says she's going to the big match tonight, as her son is one of the fighters, and Lisa, in her inimitable manner, says "I want to go with you!!" The next thing I know, we're making plans for one of Lin's 6 other sons to take us to the match. That doesn't pan out, but Lisa is super excited to see the match, as she and her family watched a lot of boxing growing up, and although I can't really take violence, I figure a little kickboxing won't be so bad.
Also, I left and lost my sunglasses at Lin's store. ANOTHER pair of sunglasses, my back-up pair of cheapies that I brought in case i lost my good ones. Which I did. I told Lin's husband, and 10 minutes later he finds us in the restaurant we were eating at to return them. So sweet... He was on the way back to our hotel when he found us. Lisa instantly fell in love with this family.
I asked a guy at the bungalow if he knew how much the tickets were. I figured it wouldn't be very expensive, as nothing here really . The guy says, "sorry, I don't know." I asked if he could call and find out. He says "sorry, I don't know the number." Really? There's flyers ALL OVER TOWN and it's the only thing going on and is being broadcast all over samui but there was NO WAY they could help?? A Foreshadowing.
Timeka takes a break from her reading- seriously, I have never seen anyone able to read like she does- and we try to take a taxi to the stadium, just north of us at the much busier and hectic chaweng beach. The guy was in the taxi with his wife, and neither of them looked happy to be driving our asses there, and Lisa is trying to talk and make friends and they either don't speak English or are pretending not to, and not only do they not talk to us, but they don't talk to each other for the whole 40 MINUTE RIDE. I don't know why it took that long, but it wasn't even a metered ride, so he wasn't ripping us off, but we think he took us some roundabout way just to punish us for having the nerve to bargain a ride from him.
I'm hungry. But the fight is starting soon, and we want to make sure we had tickets, there was an expediter, selling tickets quickly, and we quickly shell out 1500 baht each to go inside, and we're escorted to a cafe table. We, not quickly enough, do the math... we just paid $50 each for this thing.
We're all varying degrees of pissed at ourselves. Lisa was more into it than me, and really wanted to find Lin and root for her son, but still wouldn't have paid that much to go if she knew. I rationalized, telling myself that it's more "stupid American tax" for not asking, and it's what I'd pay for an event back home. Timeka was really annoyed, because I think she just came along for the ride and the experience anyway.
And of course, there's no food there. There's food EVERYWHERE in Asia, mostly food stalls especially at night, and it seems at whenever I am most hungry I can't find shit. I leave after the first round, and try to find a quick snack. I walk for so long I get lightheaded, and although I was desperate for something savory, a street cart crepe with an egg in it seemed like the best option. It was a plain, unseasoned egg, in a sweet crepe. At least I wasn't lightheaded any more. By the time I got back Lisa and Timeka had ordered and finished Indian food from some guy who delivered it.
I taught myself to whistle REALLY LOUDLY when I was in high school. Like, 2 fingers on the tip of my tongue taxi-hail kind of whistle. not the most feminine trait of mine, but I can't tell you how valuable It is. I CAN hail a taxi with it, I scare the shit out of my students whenever they're chatty with it, and I'm a really good supporter with it at sporting events. So I whistle after one bout was over, and some Thai kid sitting with his family turns around to see where it came from and looks at me and giggles. I wink at him, and for the next 10 minutes he's looking at me, almost flirtatiously but then turns right back around. Then he gets up, sits right next to us. Lisa and introduce ourselves. He speaks absolutely no English. Lisa says, "aw, you don't understand a thing we are saying to you, do you?" I think he tried to tell me he was 28 years old, because he held up 2 fingers and then 8, but he looked about 18. Who the hell knows. At some point really quickly, I tired of the fighting and tired of sitting with this guy gesticulating at me, and just wanted to go.
The ride back to the hotel only took about 15 minutes. Taxi drivers in Thailand really suck.
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