Rawai and Nongnapat Muay Thai

I left Bangkok on Sunday, and was sad to be leaving 96 Penang, as the trainers there were great and really gave me a lot of corrections on my techniques and taught me a lot. The Thai boys never really warmed up to me at all, but I understand that. They are their to try and fight their way out of poverty, and I'm just some privileged tourist who likes Muay Thai.

From Bangkok I flew to Phuket with Linda who I met up with again for a few days. Flying domestically within Thailand on Bangkok Airways was awesome. They had a lounge for economy class passengers with a nice little buffet that had orange juice, water, coffee, mini sandwiches, calzones, chocolate muffins, and sticky rice deserts. They even fed us a full meal on the hour and a half flight that had a sandwich, potato salad, and a piece of coffee cake. All for a flight that cost just a little over $90 round trip. I love Bangkok Airways. 

Economy Class Buffet from Bangkok Airways

 From the Phuket airport we headed to Nongnapat Muay Thai in Rawai. The gym just opened in February, and they just recently finished the onsite accommodations. It is really nice here, and the gym is right across the street from Rawai beach. Rawai beach is more of a working beach, not much of a swimming beach, as all the fishing boats leave from here. It is still really scenic though. I believe that Linda and I are the first people to stay at the gym, and we have the place to ourselves including the pool. Linda heads off to Kata tomorrow and I'll be on my own.

Linda with her soi kitten that she named fok thong (pumpkin) and promptly never saw again.

View of the cute little bungalows we are staying in.

View of the gym. You can see the beach in the background.

The Pool and bungalows at night.

The beach across from the street from the gym.

 So far training here is really good, and happens twice a day. I ran 2 miles before the morning session which is from 8-9:30, and then did 2.5 miles before the afternoon session that is from 4-6pm. The trainer I've been working with is a great pad holder and works a lot of fun combinations in addition to correcting my technique. The gym is not very crowded right now, and there usually only about 4-6 people along with Linda and I, so we get good attention and they are not just trying to tire us out and get us through pad rounds which is common at many of the more touristy gyms on Phuket. Training consists of running, 3 rounds of shadowboxing, 5 rounds on pads, 5 rounds on bags, and then 3-5 rounds of sparring or clinching with the trainer, which is awesome. I'll leave with some photos from sparring.