30 Days in Thailand: Off Road & Dangerous

Just a short entry today as my time in Chiang Mai is coming rapidly to a close. Just two more things I want to do here. One is to go to a real Thai boxing match. The other I spotted just the other day - half a day of off road ATV (quad biking) trekking; 45 Kms of rough trails on the back of a vehical that's less stable even than a motorbike, doesn't steer well and has very little in the way of effective brakes - how could I resist?

These machines are hilarious, it's all about body position and throttle, basically stand up and try to steer the beast with your body weight while yanking the throttle so far open its sounds like the engine will expode under the strain.

This could so easily have been a boring day, there were 5 Slovaks on the team, 2 of them girls; now I don't want to be accused of being sexist, there are some girls who are damn good on bikes and in cars, these two were not. The lads were also clearly scared witless, especially after one of them lost control and shot over the edge like a rocket propelled lemming, saved from certain death only by the two trees he hit on the way down.

Fortunately there was also a great Danish guy, my age, travelling for the same reasons. Together we were like a couple of long lost 14 year old brothers. We made sure we stayed well back from the tortoises so that we could charge at every tough section full throttle. We raced each other all the way back to base. A bloody brilliant day for 30 quid. I'd do it again if I didn't hurt so damn much.

So, kick boxing then. I wasn't impressed. Maybe I over hyped it in my own head, I was expecting violence, brutal kicks, blood, insane knockouts from round-house kicks etc etc. By comparison it was all rather tame. Take a look at the clip below, it's really more of a big hugathon really. There's only so much of this kind of fast paced brutality you can watch before you just fall asleep. I'd rather watch proper boxing any day of the week.