Life and Its Many Adventures: Sprinting Through the Week

Sweat rains down all over my face. Loud Cheering all around me at every painful hit. Loud Thai men shouting out their bets. Where am I? A Bangkok Muy Thai fight. After some careful negotiating, my friends and I were able to reserve front row, ring side seats to watch one of the biggest matches of the year, the Battle of Daorungchujaroen. Watching 110 lbs, 0% body fat Thai men lay down some the hardest kicks and punches I've ever seen was definitely an amazing experience.

The last week or so has been a whirlwind of experiences. My trip to Inle Lake, Myanmar was amazing. I had a chance to see the native population live the way that they have been living for centuries. Armed with my personal tour guide and boat for the day, we took off down the river to the lake that is the center of commerce for this region in the middle part of the country. Inle Lake is a series of floating villages, farms and factories. We visited textile, cigar, and paper factories, where little indigenous ladies spent their days working tirelessly and methodically to produce the hand-made goods that get sold throughout the region. We saw the floating farms as well as visited the market place where the people congregate to trade, purchase and exchange goods everyday. It was absolutely humbling to visit a place so removed from the rest of the World, untouched by Western hands.

After leaving Myanmar, I headed back to Thailand and made the long 22 hour journey to Koh Phangan in Southern Thailand where I would meet up with my friends and experience what has been called of the best parties in the World. Imagine a beach with over 20,000 people partying until sunrise, dressed in bright neon colors, covered in fluorescent paint with loud house music pumping, not to mention the fire baton twirlers and fire jump rope, then you might begin to guess what this experience was like. My favorite part was definitely how open people were. Everyone was friends with everyone and you really got a sense of the true warmth of humanity.

After spending July 4th recovering from the epic night before, we flew up to Bangkok, which is where I am now. In a couple of hours, we will be heading to Chiang Mai where we will hopefully do some trekking, visit wildlife reserves and take cooking classes. Needless to say, I'm very excited!