We go down to TMT and register. The bags are said to be delivered at eight, but who really thinks a airline is on time with baggage drop?

Thai people are happy to speak English, but damn! It’s almost impossible to get the real meaning of what they say. I don’t know how many times we had to “sorry”, “excuse me” and “one more time please” before we were finished with the registration.

Then we had to go equipment shopping. Fancy looking Thai shorts, boxing gloves, hand wraps, shin protection and mouth guard. We will bring it to Mandirigma camp in April, and send it back home afterwards. It could easily take up at least half the space I got in my backpack.

There’s a newbie tour at 11 so we go back to the hotel with the bags that arrive close to 8:45 and go back to join the tour.

We met Rich from New York and Nezih from Turkey that we connect with. There’s also another Norwegian on the tour, but he’s more into BJJ (Brazilian jiu jitsu).

We have bought a meal pack for the first week. That gives us unlimited water and two meals every day. We use the first for lunch and are very happy with the taste and freshness of the food. This can easily be a solution for our entire stay here.

We go back and chill by the pool and wait for it to be four o’clock. Two and a half hours of training. Here we go!

Everyone is put into beginners class, and the trainers will at some point (possibly) send you to intermediate class. If you survive there it’s advanced and for the pro fighters there is a separate game.

Gung ho! We started with some nice stretching and ran for twenty minutes.

Basic lineup with a walkthrough of the different punches, elbows and kicks. A twenty minutes pair work on technique drills. Then we’re divided into three groups. Everyone did everything, but in different order. All groups have 3 rounds of three minutes.

Three rounds of light sparring.

Three rounds with a one-to-one pad work with a trainer.

Three rounds on the heavy bag.

Hoi hoi hoi. After two hours Mr Miyagi (the head instructor for the beginners) talked what appeared to be utter nonsense for ten minutes. At the very end of his speech I actually understood he was talking English. Ok, that was a bit bizarre.

Back up on your feet and to the heavy bag. 200 knees, elbows and just clinching the bag for a total of about ten minutes. Then the order was given:”You have ten minutes to do 300 sit ups and 100 pushups!” I won’t comment to much on my score the first day. Probably not ever, if I’m not able to them all. Then maybe I’ll boast about it. I will just say I have serious doubt that only full quality pushups and sit ups are at present time not quite within reach.

After training we got our dinner to go and slowly walked back to the hotel.

We turned in early.

Poker has the feeling of a sport, but you don’t have to do push-ups.

– Penn Jillette