Day 110! It’s been a long couple days. But today I took a slow morning and then went on an adventure with my friends Dan, Sam, and Jin. It ended up being a very nice and chill day (outside of the adventure we went on)…

I woke up this morning on the later side again and immediately went to get breakfast with Dan and Sam.

Today is my last day with them for now. They’re both heading down south for the rest of their trip. It’s been wonderful hanging out with them for over a month! But I’m ready for some downtime before having a blast with my cousins.

We went to the alleyway restaurant that we liked from the other day. On the menu there was a dish called pink noodle soup, Yen Ta Fo. None of us had had it before so we decided to give it a go! I wasn’t sure what the pink sauce was, but it was a really good soup.

According to Google, the sauce is red fermented bean curd or red fermented tofu, birdseye chillies, Thai sriracha sauce, tomato ketchup, garlic, vinegar and pickled garlic.

We of course had to also kick off the hot day with another smoothie! Smoothies have to be one of my favorite parts of the day.

A couple hours later, Dan and Sam were packed up and checked out. While they were packing, I found that there was a free Muay Thai fight at a TV studio today! Even though Dan and Sam had busses at 6pm, they still joined. Our new friend Jin joined us as well.

When we made it to the studio, we were turned away at the entry because Dan and Jin were breaking the dress code. Luckily for them, there were, very opportunistic, ladies renting clothes and shoes outside the studio to help tourists who forgot to follow the dress code.

After they were properly dressed, we entered the studio and into the arena.

This studio was actually the first one to live broadcast Muay Thai fights! And it was their 56th anniversary this year.

The arena was a cramped space with a Muay Thai ring, bleachers, an announcers stand, and a live band playing the traditional Muay Thai music!

Even though we were there an hour early, the studio was pretty packed with locals and a few tourists. Apparently the Channel 7 Muay Thai fights are really popular with the locals because they’re free and they bet on the fights.

Today’s broadcast was going to be 6 bouts, each with 5 rounds. The 4th bout was a fight for 138,000 Baht (around $4,000), it apparently was the championship fight of a recent tournament.

We only ended up staying for 3 of them but the atmosphere was way more energetic than any of the other Muay Thai fights I’ve been to! The fighters were a lot more methodical and technical and you could tell they were going for points vs the knock out.

The crowd was really getting into it too, whooping and hollering. Additionally, having the live traditional music playing instead of a recording made the environment that much better!

Once three fights rolled around, it was time to head back to the hostel so Sam and Dan wouldn’t miss their bus.

It was our last car ride together and we were starting to get a little sentimental. It’s been a blast of a month with these two and I really hope I see them in the future!

We got back to our hostel and went to find some food.

We hadn’t ate much because of the Muay Thai fight, so this meal was exceptionally good. I got a chicken pad Thai from the same place I ate late last night. I also snagged a strawberry mango smoothie from our go to smoothie guys.

After eating, it was time to say see you later!

Dan and Sam walked off into the sunset to catch their 6pm bus… or they thought.

I got a call from Sam not long after they left. Apparently their bus was overbooked, so they got pushed to a 9pm bus. Do they were still in the area and able to hang for a couple more hours.

So we ended up joining each other for dinner, desert, and… another smoothie.

After our little feast, Sam and Dan walked into the chaos of Bangkok as it was time to say, “see you later” for real this time.

Since I’ve had a couple late nights and I didn’t have anyone to make immediate plans with. I decided to go to bed on the early side tonight!

As I’ve said a couple times already, I really enjoyed spending a month with these two. Our big group that traveled together has come to an end and I have to say thank you to all of them.

The last month has been fantastic! We hung out in two different countries and I really enjoyed the company and deep chats. I look forward to the next time we can all get together again!

I have no plans for tomorrow and I’m looking forward to it! We’ll see what I get up to and get done.

– Elie