The Fight



So the fight is over, as I guess all of the ones that read this blog know by now but there’re still some things I want ad to it. The guy I ended up fighting was not as I said 7 kg heavier but 17 kg (36 pounds)!!! He was 91 kg while I was 74, just so you get a clear idea of how unmatched it was. And there for to make the victory better sounding for me of course ;) But the first time I saw him I didn’t like it one bit. I expected him to be bigger or just with a bit of a gut but no he was massive, and also just as tall I was. So the only plan I set up in my head at that time was to outlast him. Take a beating and wear him down and then I could come strong afterwards because my fitness was good and I’d last longer than such a bulky guy. It worked out. He dominated the first round, giving me quite a beating and hit me once, right on the kisser as I heard somewhere, and I was dizzy for few seconds but managed to last the round. Second one was more in my favor he was more tired and there for not brawling in as much so I felt stronger. And then we got into one of the corners towards the end of the round and I hit him with numerous elbows (one resulting in a cut on his head) and then finally knees to the gut and he was out.

 
 

My first pro fight over and I got $110 (12.000 kr.) for the fight. Nothing great but always nice though for I look at is more as extra thing because I would still fight if there wouldn’t be any money. But enough of that, the fight was great and it was fun to win but there is always a downsider after the fights and that’s the injuries. He kicked me with few good low kicks that I caught right on my left thigh and sleeping the nights after and walking, moving basically hurt like a bi**h! So got kind of depressed, not like the real physiological thing, just that I wasn’t really able to move so I stayed home all day, chilling on the internet and watching movies. And no I did not blog at that time :/ To lazy for that too! Normally injuries like these go down in few days up to two weeks. But mine took longer for some reason, some said I might have bruised the bone but I don’t know. At least now I’m almost healed and am at least able to run full speed and do the kicks so it doesn’t bother me during trainings at least. So the fight was the 14^th and I got back training on the 21^st.

Youtube link to the fight: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA8860vBxDA


Me, Urs and Ivar on the way to the beach. Urs was the only one of us friends that had a scooter so we were just classy and rode it this way. Smallest drives and then taller and tallest ;) We at least thought it was hilarious!

The motor accidenth

And then the second test, if it’s cool to call it that, happened. I decided to rent a bit bigger bike on the 23^rd and go for a pleasant ride around the island Phuket and then possibly drive up to this one national park that was about 120 miles (190 km) away. So I rented a 250 cc bike, which is not powerful at all, just bit better one to drive long distance than the little scooters we have been cruzing around on. So I drove it for about an hour before I hit the road towards the national park which is on the mainland and off the island. And I was about halfway there, or 100 km away, when the accident happened.

 

I was driving towards a right turn as the road splitted, to a country road and then continuing the main road. As I’m getting close to the turn a scooter cuts me off because a car is passing both of us and she wanted to get ahead of me before. So she kind of forces me into the side of the road and because the road was splitting to a sand road, a lot of it was in the side of the road so I see that I’m not going to be able to make the turn and try to brake and stop the bike before I would go into a ditch that was at the split, right in front of me. And because I have been driving a scooter for the past two months and a half I’m so used to braking with both handles but on the bike of course the left handle is the clutch and the right one the front break. So as it happened so fast I didn’t think of stepping on the back break, put my feet down and tried to stay balanced as I pulled really hard on the front break. Staying balanced didn’t work out so well so I slammed against the road on the left side of me and the bike and slid few meters against the sandy road. I of course wasn’t in any motor gear, both to hot and also it wasn’t available, so I slid on the road on my forearm, shoulder, knee, foot, and hand. I got nicely scratched up but nothing to serious. Pretty deep one in the hand, the most inconvenient place of course, just my luck!

The bike before the whole left side of it got scratched up. The repair cost was though only $80 (8400 kr.).

So some Thai guy stopped by me on his scooter to check if I was alright and I played the cool guy that nothing was wrong and I was totally cool until the blood came flushing down, haha then I accepted the help. He gave me some towel to dry off on and helped me bending back the gear stick, which had bent in and wasn’t able to move. That worked out so he told me next to drive behind him so I did. We came to his home and his wife patched me all up, cleaned the wounds and then I was good to go after I gave them some money for the help. Road back home and went to see the doctor next door. And you know what, I don’t know if it’s the same why with most doctors but this one was (harðhenntur) the exact opposite with gentle and I was in serious pain the entire time he was taking care of me, cleaning the wounds (ekkert elsku mamma)! :D The really worst thing about this was that I always sleep on my left side! Hate sleeping on my right side and it’s really just not comfortable so the next nights after I had a real hard time sleeping being all patched up and hurting every time I moved ;)

 
Christmas time
 

But life went on and Christmas Eve was the day after. Preston was supposed to hook us up with a real nice dinner place that evening and as the day passed I got more nervous because no one seemed to be able to reach him! My idea of a nice dinner, in a great company of people, eating wonderful food and then laying in a food coma later up in a couch wasn’t really gonna happen! It was 8 pm when we gave up on Preston and decided to go to the best pizza place here around. So 15 of us joined together, listened to Shakira and some other pop music while dining pizza on Christmas Eve. It was though really a special evening despite the things I named before. Everybody in the nicest mood and just enjoying the time together, the pizza was amazing as always and I drank coke, no jólaöl (special Icelandic festival drink) but good enough! :D

 

The plan after that was to drive with a bus to Bangkok the morning after, 12 hour ride on Christmas day to get to the airport wherefrom I would later on fly to Vietnam to meet my family from the states! I thank God I didn’t decide on that! So after we got home from dinner I checked on the flights to Bangkok from Phuket and got one at 11 pm, so I booked it and was therefore able to spend Christmas day with Ívar and the other kids. On Christmas day I had red curry soup for breakfast as Ívar had spaghetti carbonara with a lot of parmesan cheese! Haha it was lovely and then we chilled the rest of the day, ate Swedish gummies, drank coke and ate snack while watching movies. That night we went to a Mexican buffet and then Ívar drove me on the scooter to the airport, where we listened to Icelandic Christmas music on my iPod and sang as loud as we could along, getting few weird stares from random strangers. Precious moment! :D
 

Me and Ivar with mandarínur (e. small oranges) the Christmas fruit in Iceland. It set the mood straight :D

Smell ya later, Gísli

Time for a blog wouldn‘t you say! Been about two weeks now shit load of stuff has been going on! Dad came for a wonderful visit for six busy days. We drove more around on the scooters than any other first time traveler to Thailand has ever done... We did a lot of sightseeing and checking out places that I've found in my two months of being here. Dad got to know real wonderful tasting Thai food; we both did our first bungee jump and checked out few elephants among a lot of other stuff. While doing that we trained twice every day and dad tried out Muay Thai for the first time! I was really glad because it was a dream since I was I think 11 years old. I, dad and Iris walked a pathway through the highlands of Iceland called Laugarvegur and got to know this Tai kwon do student that got me crazy for starting training martial arts alongside with dad once I'd move to him. That didn't work out but Thailand made it happen ;)

Pabbi with some chick and this awesome baby elephant!

While training twice a day and being so active during the day and night caused me to burn the thread from both ends and resulted in complete exhaustion. I feel like I'm experiencing over training symptoms and since there is only a week towards my fight it's tensing me up but I'm sleeping now everyday around nine hours in the night and then what ever sleep I can get during the day before my second training. Eating like a beast, just trying to rebuilt my energy level, and I think its working. I take today off training, I talked to Tuk and he said it was OK so I'll go hard out tomorrow again :D And I just found out that the guy I was supposed to fight, 72 kg white guy just got sick so he can't fight. So now I'm fighting 82 kg white guy that has never fought before though! He's as tall as I am and 9 kg heavier so I have to watch out... Beat him by stamina I'm hoping but I want a proper fight not some tuktuk driver they pick up from the street which happens often if the other fighter can't turn up. So I'm actually pretty pumped now, I'll be the underdog so that's exciting!

CORRECTION: I just trained today after the day off and a massage.. And I feel sooo good! Energy is back and I was pounding the bags and pads! I'm a machine again! Haha it's such a relief because I was nervous when I would get better because the fight is closing up but now I'm really confident and in the right mindset for it! 

 

Pabbi, me and Ivar at a restaurant in Phuket town.

The bungee jump me and dad did was one of the most fun things I've ever done. Dad didn't quite agree with me, but he was really glad he did it, and I'm so glad he did. I've already uploaded pictures and videos of us jumping so you can check that out on facebook... If you don't have facebook you need to update! Sorry that I haven't been posting any pictures on this blog site. Facebook is just way faster and also my camera broke so I trust that you can see pictures from others :D I just made a deal with the photographer that works here so now he'll give me all the pictures he takes of me during training for free since I paid the normal budged, we're buddies so that helped the deal.


Pabbi upside down in the bungy!

Me with the certificate of courage, pabbi got one too! 

In these two weeks a lot has happened. Almost everybody except for two guys that I know are already gone, and the gym isn't as packed as normally aswell as doing the fighters training doesn't allow me to socialize to much because I simply don't have the energy to!! Talking about a boring guy! The ironic thing is that when I first came here, Lauren, one of the girls who is fighter also seemed really cold at first and just plain boring because she never seemed to have the interest to talk or hang out with us... Me and Unnur even talked about it how dry she was always! Haha but now I know the reason behind it. The fighters training is so intense you don't have energy to do anything else but train, eat and sleep. I tried to and that got over-trained because I rested not enough for my body to handle (did some research on it). So now since I'm always training with Lauren I've found out she's the sweetest girl and fun to talk to! She was just always to exhausted before.

Me, David and Tom had an eating competition on our day off two weeks ago. We all went to the breakfast buffet we always eat at and set the rules. Here the three of us were known for eating shitload of food so we though of settling it and seeing who could eat the most. So here is the list of what we just ate:

1) Bowl of coco cereal.
2) 3 egg omelet with cheese, bacon and ham and potatoes on the side. 
3) Dish of mixture of rice, bacon, hot dogs and ham.
4) Sandwich with two fried eggs, cheese, 3 hams and bacon and potatoes on the side.
5) One and a half 3 egg omelet with cheese and ham.
6) Bowl of yogurt (17 spoons) with fruits and mixture of oats, raisins and corn flakes.  
7) Dish of hot dogs, bacon, baked beans and a toast.
8) Another bowl of coco cereal.
9) Bowl of corn flakes

In ninth round me and David so full we just took a spoon and waited for the other one to finish his. Matt had already bailed out after 4th round, so weak! On my fourth spoon of the corn flakes I just felt the food coming up and was able to stop it. So I dashed to the bathroom and had the best vomit of my life! Haha David was the champion but he felt like shit for the rest of the day while I was just doing great! :) I'm also very pleased with myself that I wouldn't quit until my body just said no! 


Seriously the only picture I could find of the two of us finalists! Pretty old one but it's funny though! 

But off to training! Catch ya later! ;) 

I‘ve now started the fighters training. The night before the fight with Victor I told Tuk, the owner and manager, that I‘d want to fight at Bangla stadium. So on last Monday he pulled me into his office and we had the proper fight talk. He asks for my weight and I told him that I am 77 kg; he gives me a short look and then writes down 73 kg. I laughed in my head because it was like he was checking out how much weight I could loose... I laughed because it was like a polite way of saying that I was too fat ;) So now I‘m fighting somebody on the 14th of December, have no clue who he is or even if he‘s Thai or foreign like me. And I kind of like it that way, I‘ll just now to get as fit as I can so I‘ll be ready to face whoever will be in the other corner.

I've started the fighters training now and I feel like I did when I first came here. Tired all the time! The trainings are so intense and so much harder that I'm again now going to sleep at nine in the evenings and even taking naps during the day. I haven't even gone on the computer now since Friday because I just haven't felt I had the energy to. Now we run more before every training and the trainings are longer and more intense. At each week we're running about 90 km, which is the same distance I was running in track every week but this is just warm up before the "real" training ;) Just gives you the idea how insane it can be here!

Now Unnur just left! :( The next few days will most likely be empty and weird because we've been spending most of the free time together. But the good thing is that I'll see her again in Iceland, compared to most of the people you meet here, you'll never see again. After spending now about six weeks here, almost my entire stay, will be weird not having her around. But dad, Gunnar (Hahaha love that I have to specify who it is, not like most people, but who wants to be like everyone else ;), is coming on Saturday night!!!! I seriously can't wait. I have planned out some things to do, places to eat and of course get him into training! The hotel and everything is set so now it's just waiting on him to come over. I've already told everybody about it so he's going to be most welcome.

A lot of new people have been coming in lately; high season is now well started so the increasing number of students is expected. Lots of cool people that's fun to hang around and setting up with new friend groups is necessary because everybody of the old core, the tight friend group that we had have left already or are in the next days. But a super cool thing happened the other day. Me and Unnur were driving down to Phuket town to extend here visa by a week. We got all lost in the town and finally had a girl driving in front of us towards where we were supposed to go. On the way there I saw Agnes, a friend from Versló, the school I just graduated from, on the most random street in town. We were following the car so we couldn't stop so I just yelled at here that I'd contact here on facebook. I did and we met now on Monday morning after training. She and her boyfriend had travelled originally to Malta, an island in the Mediterranean ocean and were going to stay there for two months but decided to travel to Thailand after the first month, and did. And are now going to north part of Thailand and are then taking the east side, and travelling to Laos and Cambodia. Pretty cool what they're doing and just great to meet another Icelander so randomly and especially one you really know, she is literally best friend of couple of my class sisters.

But more soon if I have any energy to spare ;)
Gisli

I've been now waiting on it for awhile to tell you all about Ivar's love affair, but I wanted it to last for at least week to make it real, and it did. Me and Ivar moved to another apartment, half as expensive and bigger with one default though, or that was what we thought at first... We would have to share a king-size bed. We're good friends and didn't think it would be that big of a deal, and with the extra cash we could just have more fun instead. Well it didn't quite work out that way. When we moved it we realized that we would have to share a cover as well! Hahaha we didn't know about that, and had signed a four month contract so it wasn't like we could just jump out of that deal. We could of course by another cover because sharing it was not working out, and we most likely would have if the events in the future wouldn't have happened.

One of Unnur's roommates Alfianna went to Singapore for a week, so after spending two nights in the new apartment, having a rooster yelling from around 5:30 in the morning, the ducks being loud as hell from when the sun comes up and not having a good night sleep from shearing the bed and cover, I took the desperate decision of moving in to Unnur's place for few nights. So I there from Wednesday till Friday, and the Friday night everybody went out. I got really bad stomach ache so I left early to my and Ivar's place to go to sleep, and expected him to come later that night. Well as it turned out, Ivar never came home that night. The morning after, I called him and apparently he and Dan, one of our friends, had gone home with mother and a daughter. Glad to hear Ivar slept in the daughter's room and Dan in the mother's. Ivar spent then the whole day with her, Ghun, at the beach and then crashed at her place again that night. So I was super happy, had now the entire bed and cover to myself and could sleep properly at last. And now since then, I've had the room and bed to me since then because Ivar just stays at her place, so as long as he is happy, I'm happy too.

 
Kung, Ivar's girlfriend, don't have a picture of the two of them together yet. 

All of us haven't seen much of Ivar in the past few days, he comes and trains but then goes most of the time back again. I'll admit that me and Ivar were starting to get a bit tired from each other, can't blame him or me since we literally spent every single minute of the day together for about 5 weeks straight. So this break has been great, he's been hanging out with Ghun and I and Unnur have been chilling out together so now we're all better. Their relationship is going great and they're really cute together so I think it will work out great.

The camp was celebrating their seven years in business on Saturday night and because of that, they asked students to sign up for fights among each other as entertainment. The fights were the same as me and Ron agreed on two weeks ago. Three rounds of two minutes, no elbows and no knees to the face, but body was alright. Me and Ivar signed up for fights and few of our friends as well, so in total it was five fights and the trainers then matched up students for the fairest fights. Ivar got Jayme, about the same height but way experienced, but Ivar didn't mind. I was matched up with Ivan, a guy that had experience but wasn't in the best shape for he just arrived, but people wanted to see me and Victor fight. They were going to put money on the fight and bet so the trainers agreed on it and I and Victor wanted it more so it was a deal.

Ivar's fight was the third and mine was the last. The first four fights were all supposed to be sparring so, you weren't supposed to go all out, but that's never possible when you have two competitive guys facing each other, so they were all really good and all of them were hard core fights except for one of them. Because of that the trainers didn't keep scoring, so all of them ended with a draw. So Ivar and Jaime got draw but Ivar did though really good, and amazing considering it's his first fight ever. Me and Victor's fight was the last fight and he main fight of the night. It was a win or lose fight so it was all out, nothing held back. I won the fight by technical knockout in third round. Technical knockout is when the referee stops the fight because the other guy can't defend himself anymore because he's either way to tired or close to a knock out. Me and Ivar were so pumped after the fights as well with all the others so we all went out afterwards and had a great time.

  
Left picture: Me and Victor after the fight. Right picture: Ivar, me, David and Matt. We all fought that night.

You can see our fights on youtube. My fight is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-OUQ9aFNIo and Ivar's is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6Xm06MaunY&feature=related

The day after, Sunday, is probably the best day so far. No trainings are on Sundays so the plan was to chill. We went to the buffet at noon and then headed to the hotel. Apparently there was a huge party there and free drinks and food and entertainment for the entire day. So we just had a blast, had amazing food, drank all we could of coke and played volleyball and chilled out. Me and Unnur then ended the day by crashing at her place with the best munch ever and watched a movie, then after that listened to Icelandic music and chilled on the internet until 5 am in the morning... Good day :D

The hotel where the party was, picture of the pool.

Unnur with the munch that was legendary!

So adios amigos, pop kan mai krap :)
Gisli

One day we're chilling in the hammocks outside our apartment reading, when Gemma, one of our friends comes up to us and tells us that she had seen ducks and chicken babies on the market for sale. The baby chickens were even colored in all colors, pink, blue, green and yellow. The ducks were though just normal but insanely cute, she showed us pictures from her camera and then Ivar got this crazy idea! "Let's get ducks as pets!" It took me not a second to agree on it so the next few days me and Ivar were daily visitors to all the markets around looking for ducks. We didn't find them at first and after looking for one and a half week we were about to give up, but in pure coincidence we walked into this guy sitting on the ground with about 40 baby ducks and a lot more baby chickens for sale. So we bought two ducks for three quarters (Isl. 80 kr.) and we had thought of their names long time ago! "Duck" and "BraBra" (Icelandic for Kvak kvak). I wanted a duck with personality and picked BraBra the one that was most energetic in the box and Ivar picked Duck, really calm and easy going. So by the time we had the ducks everybody at the camp had know we were going to get them so as soon as we finally had them everybody wanted to come and see them and I and Ivar were proud fathers showing off our babies. We even had bought a big water basket so they could swim, a cage for them during the night, bed with padding, water drinking bowl.


Me, Duck and BraBra


Duck is the yellow one, and BraBra is the black one

The first week was great, we played with them a lot, let them play in the bed, crawl on us and go outside to eat ands and bugs. They are extremely cute but extremely loud!!! After the first week I kind of ran out of patient. Ivar followed me soon in that group, and even though we didn't talk about it until recently we wanted to get rid of them. They are not really inside pets!! Haha it kind of was a failure from start because they poop EVERYWHERE and so much, they smell bad or their poop so there is now always bad smell in our apartment. They wake up every day around six in the morning and start being as loud as they can, it doesn't bother Ivar, he sleeps through it but I can't! And since I've been injured all last week I kind have wanted to sleep in but it's been really hard! Hahaha so this really exciting and good idea has turned into a nightmare. And we're now figuring out what we can do with them, our best choice so far is to give them back to the old owner, but as hard as it was to find him the first time it's most likely going to take a while! NEW: Ivar's ... uncle has a farm where we can put them and visit as often as we want, so we're thinking of doing that :)

But now to the injuries, after the fight with Ron on last Tuesday I don't know how but somehow I managed to mess up my right ankle, and my left thigh was well bruised up from his kicks so I couldn't train on Wednesday so me and Unnur went to the World championship in women beach volleyball at Karon beach, about 20 minutes drive from where we are. The day was great and after watching few matches we decided to chill on the beach and lay out, read and get some tan. I jumped in the ocean and because it was so nasty, all in some stuff we went towards the showers to rinse off. Because my ankle was all messed up my steps in the right foot were kind
of clumsy and heavy so when I stepped on this long, thin, rusty and really sharp metal pin I couldn't quite pull it up at the very second and it was I think a millimeter from going through, at least I could feel the hole it made between my bones and at the top of my foot. So we jumped to the showers to rinse the sand of and from there to the bar on the beach to get vodka to pure in it, because there was no First-aid kit close by or nobody that understood us. So after that we just laid out in the sun for the rest of the day and of course with no sun lotion on! Hahaha so when I come home I'm lobster red and not really able to walk. So I drench myself in Alovera gel and go to dinner.


Laying out after stepping on the pin, later "Burn baby burn"

Unnur at the secret place we found
 

Mr. Lobster, Unnur tan-master, and Ivar chilling over Bolognese cook out!

The day after I'm on my way to Unnur on my scooter, and as I drive in the camps parking lot, which is not made of maverick but sand and few rocks, Unnur is sitting outside reading a book. I get this great idea "I'm gonna break really hard and do a tailswing break." Likewise my luck the two earlier days it did not work out, I pulled the wrong break, the front wheal break and the bike slid to the side and I face planted on my left side into the sand. I brought my hand in front of me so it got all cut up as well as my left shoulder got pretty nasty treatment along with my left knee and ankle. So from these three days I managed to mess up my right ankle, left thigh, bottom of my right foot, all body sun burned, left hand, shoulder, knee and ankle cut and scratched up. I'd say I had found my former form from when I was little and always getting hurt. Prove: my forehead :) I finally got to train on Monday and have trained since then. So I'm alright now and I just hope I'll be lucky in the next few months. Keep dreaming ;)
Later, Gísli

I've been now getting a lot of questions lately how we spend the day and what we do and stuff so just a brief thing about that. Normally what we should do is to start the day by waking up at 6:15 and get ready for the run at 6:30. But last week was really shaky because of injuries; I'll come back on that. And the week before that I was just plain lazy and didn't want to wake up, hahaha life is so hard here, waking up so early... That's a joke though I hope you got that because life couldn't be simpler and less responsible. So on Tuesdays and Thursdays we go to a yoga class which is AMAZING and it's really incredible how much I've learned in just month and how much flexibility I've gained. Seriously I'm thinking of training yoga when I get back, it's really fascinating and after seeing the instructor going into these fu*ked up positions you just can't be anything else then amazed.

So after morning session and then yoga I always go to this morning buffet. All you can eat of omelets, yogurt, fresh fruits, bread, bacon, backed beans, potatoes and a lot more for only $5,5 (Isl. 600 kr.) I'm one of the few here that's really trying to gain weight, so I try to eat as much as I can and the normal dishes here don't fill me properly after trainings, so getting to know this buffet was seriously a life/money saver. Most of the times I go alone but sometimes I get somebody that wants to try it out but if not then I just bring a book, and have a lovely quite brunch. What we do in-between trainings is really random but lately me and Unnur have been going to this five star hotel and chilling at their pool, tanning, reading and playing. Really fun, haha we're going again tomorrow and that will be our fifth day in a row ;)

On saturday nights we go out, that's the only night you really can because Sundays are the only days that we can sleep in on. So this picture is from on of those nights :) The later training is either way at 15 or 17 so we get to pick, but as soon as we're signed up for a fight we have to go to the 17 training because that's the fighters training. We just go to either one that is more comfortable with what we do during the day. And after training it's just getting ready to dinner and I always get two dishes for dinner! Haha the Thai food here is soooooo good, I'm in heaven though we have to space out sometimes and get pizza. So after dinner we often crash at somebody's house and have a chat or watch a movie or read a book. Often we go out to dinner as a big group so we spend the entire evening just at the restaurant chilling. Chilling is involved in a lot of things we do here! And being able to do absolutely nothing and having completely no harm feelings about it is the best, no stress because of you could do something better, like homework for example. LOVE IT!!

So that's really how the days go by, sometimes we break it up of course and do something out of the ordinary but I normally tell you about that here, but the last three weeks have kind of slid into a pack so I'm trying to sort it out. But this part was supposed to be really small so sorry about that.

So outside of the hotel we always stay at, it's free as far as we know and the staff there is really nice. We kind of feel like a leach but as long as they're not kicking us out, we're staying!! Yeah back to that, so the hotel is literally at the beach, from where the tanning benches are there are maybe, one meter to the beach, sea, depends on the position of the sea. And outside of the hotel is an island. Really big one and the first time me and Ivar got there we thought of how great idea it would be to swim out to the island. The hotel has kayaks that hotel guests can use but we got to have the for free. So Ivar padded to the island alongside me swimming. The swim took 59 minutes and 43 seconds! I was beat in the end, haha and swimming to a target is not as cool as it sounds, because it comes closer so slowly!! It really messes up your head.

But during the swim when I was maybe 3/5 of the way I saw a jelly fish.. I freaked out. Looking at animals through glass or from the top of the boat is totally different than swimming in less than a meter's distance. Plus knowing that jelly fish burns you, wasn't helping, and that the crocodile awesome guy from Australia was actually killed by one was not helping either. I swam as fast as I could from it and during that I touched another one. Hahaha and I screamed like a little girl seeing a spider, I hadn't told Ivar that I saw the first one so he was really shocked and hurried over. I was flipping out because I thought I had swum into a bunch of them, a group maybe. My heart was beating so hard in my chest and I was out of breath in matter of seconds. So Ivar padded before me and pointed at all the jelly fishes that were around so I could swim around them. When we were there I jumped into the Kayak and Ivar swam back. He got about 3/4ths of the way but in same time so he decided to jump on the boat since he had been as long in the water. He only saw one jelly fish all the way so he got lucky, haha but he alos screamed like a little girl when he saw it so I felt bit better about myself after that!

So here is a picture of the pool of the hotel we stay at with the Island in background! But this blog has gotten really long already so I'm gonna call it enough for today. More stories coming, good ones... Our new pets, the adventures Zoo trip, Ivar's ... and my Friday the 13th three days in row.
Respect, Gísli

Sorry I haven't blogged in a long time now. Really thought that nobody was actually reading and if that's so then blogging is really boring. So now that I hadn't talked to a single person in Iceland or the states for three whole weeks, and then finally yesterday I got solid internet connection so I made few calls and really liked what people had to say, haha that they were actually reading the blog so here it is...
 

It's almost a month since I blogged last time so there's a lot to tell from so I'm just gonna go for a short stories on the biggest events.

I and Ivar rented a scooter (isl. Vespu) and thank god for that because otherwise our mental health would be something to question about because the first few days were really just staying at the gym and within a radius of maybe a kilometer so we were always on the same spot. So with the scooter we're now able to join the CRAZY/WILD traffic of Thailand. It's literally the jungle law here, the bigger you are the more "power" you have, haha and everybody have to move from you. So being on scooter you have to stay on the left side and be extremely aware of the traffic but now me and Ivar are pretty awesome at driving and coping with everything so we allow us to go further out and see more.

We went for a breakfast after training one Wednesday and decided to take a turn at a road we hadn't driven before. And we kept going and going and the only plan was to follow the coastline and there for always make a left turn were we could. It turned out to be an eight hour road trip around the whole Phuket Island. The funny part is that it started pouring down after like two hours and we had literally monsoon rain on us for six hours, driving a scooter in Thailand, and it was one of the best days ever!!

I've been sparring now on Fridays and have got a lot better and for some reason I always end up going all out with the one I'm fighting but that's what both of us want so then it's cool. The past two times I've sparred with one of my friends Ron from Peru. He's like an animal in the ring and everybody make fun of him for that but I love it cuz therefore I get to fight him for real. And last Saturday we decided to go for a all out fight on Tuesday. No elbows and no straight knee kicks, and we would wear shin guards. That were our terms because we didn't want to get injured and we did three rounds of two minutes. Haha told everybody about it and we had a real crowed watching when the fight was. I was in the red corner and he in the bleu one and we were both still standing after three rounds so it was called a tie but I landed way more punches and kicks and he got a count down twice but it was just for fun so it was just fun. There are some pictures of the fight on facebook, not really good action photos but still...



FACT: Ladyboy is a term for Thai guys that are gay but that's not enough so they go for the whole package. Go for a boob job, shave down their Adam's apple and even do some further plastic surgeries to make them look more like girls, everything but removing their penis. So they act in all ways like girls and try to pick up guys WITHOUT telling them the real "truth". So when for example when they go home with somebody it's quite a shock when the pants go off!!

Now you've probably have gotten some really creepy idea in your heads: "what has he done?", "what is the purpose of this Ladyboy story" and so on so here it comes. We were in Patong with few of our friends, group of seven together from Rawai Muay Thai gym and then one Thai girl with us. The night started out really good and fun, we had few drinks and were loving the attention that every foreigner gets here, all girls crazy about you and calling out for you. Late in the night we went to one of the biggest clubs, Hollywood, and went straight to the dance floor. I start dancing with one of the girls, and the funny fact about Thailand is that you can seriously pick a girl. Just point at her and she walks to you and starts dancing for example. So I tell you it was a damn good looking one. Well in this case we're dancing and start making out and stuff, you know, things you do when you're drunk and dancing with total strangers.

And all of a sudden Ivar picks my shoulder and says "dude, you're dancing to a Ladyboy!!"
I say "no way! I've done all the checks (which are checking the back of the head, Adam's apple and ..."
And he says "well Petii (the Thai girl that was with us) said so"

Hahaha I freaked out and pushed her/him away and didn't take a single look at her/him for the rest of the night. I was so disgusted that I didn't even dance with a single girl/guy after that, just pushed them away because for me there was no way anymore of telling if it was a girl or a guy. I still claim that it was a girl because we never really found out or asked, but the fact that I possibly made out with a guy is just too funny, for others so I hope you liked the story!

Me and Ivar have now been to a Muay Thai fight at a big stadium and that really pumps me up to fight myself, so that will be in the next months most likely. Unnur one of me and Ivar's class mates from High School/Versló during the first year joined us here at Rawai for totally coincidence. Really weird how small the world is. She had been travelling around Asia and wanted to try Muay Thai and did some research on the internet for camps and ended up picking the one we are staying at. So we've been hanging a lot together, going to the World championship of girls beach Volley ball, haha isn't that a dream for every guy, hanging out by the pool and just chilling.

In our month here we've worked out pretty big and really solid friend group. So we go a lot out to eat during the nights and chill together between trainings. So after spending a month here we've really gotten into all that's going on here and are loving life, THIS IS LIVING!! More on that later, way to long blog already, but some good stories!!
Love, Gísli

Well I can for sure check off my bucked list to have a Thai boxer beating me up! Haha it was quite an experience... On trainings on Fridays we have boxing day, so no kicking, just boxing and my shoulders and arms have been the part of my body that's feeling worst and most sore. Just lifting the arms above shoulders hurts so having a full day of working just with the hands would be hard. We started out in the morning having a really hard training but really effective one. Got some nice heads up about the punching and positioning so it was good for the further events. Then after hitting pads with the trainers and then rounds of punching bag we learned the basics of sparring (boxing lightly with an opponent). We learned how do defend against punches, that is just put hands together in front of you forehead and take the punch. And then to do hooks on an opponent, different then hitting the bags.

But enough of that. In the second training we did the same, pad work and rounds with the bags. But after that we were now sparring for real for the first time against somebody. So I pair up with an English guy and I think he has some experience in boxing because he was moving and punching like he would. The rounds were 5 minutes each, so I and he started out from the beginning to punch hard, not full power but pretty hard blows, that you could feel at least when you made a contact. We were doing pretty good, getting good punches in and moving well (haha I hope at least) so the trainers set us up against Thai boxers. Thai boxers are guys that fight frequently and are in amazing shape and as a Thai boxer at that age then you have been doing Muay Thai for all your life. Here it is a lifestyle not sport!!

So the second round starts and I keep punching with the same power I did earlier so the Thai guy named Boss answered at the same force and then it had began, and soon we were punching full power at each other and really going at it! The trainers noticed and instead of stopping us and making us slow down they gave me pointers of how to punch harder and move better. So I did my best to keep up with him because he is good! Haha really good, and it surprises you how hard a skinny guy like him can punch. But now to the ass kicking, and don't think that I just stood there like a punching bag, I got some very good hits on him and all the trainers around were cheering and watching! So I lasted about one round with him and then I was out and finished really. The second round with him and third in total was brutal on me because I was so tired and out of breath that he now got way better chance to give me real and hard punches, and I have a mark on my forehead, because as you tend to get tired and unable to bring your hands in front of you face you just put your head down.

I didn't get knocked out or anything just stood through with the round and then I was OUT OF IT! Haha the trainers said I could rest now and told me I did great so that was really pleasing to hear after that beating! Haha but off to dinner, sorry how long that story dragged out, wrote it in three parts in between trainings, but what ever, haha hope you like it anyway :D I'm at least pumped about it and so happy because I've never really sparred for real in my life, sure we fought in Karate but that was just touch not full contact. So for a beginner I think I did a fine job taking on Thai boxer, haha but enough of that! Talk to you later!

Gísli

We have now had our first Monsoon rain, finally I say because I love the rain, haha at least the one that falls straight down, not the one that goes sideways like in Iceland! I skipped practice so I could go for a long run in the rain, because rain like that doesn't come to often from now on since rain season is ending. It was really amazing because most of the streets were flooded so I was running in huge puddles a lot. Had my toe shoes on so it didn't matter that much! But trainings are now getting so hard on us and with so little rest in all the heat we decided to take yesterday completely off. Just rested for the entire day, watched a movie and the Delih Commonwealth games and just did nothing but lying out. And in the evening we had a pizza! Haha it's incredible how much we appreciate pizza now because we get bread so seldom! :)

So now we've made a promise to each other to go to every training from now on. No slacking even though we don't count yesterday as slacking because we were just dead tired. But with week gone past now here in Thailand we are adjusting a little though there's a lot still to get used to. Our Thai language is growing slowly but we're trying to work on it. Have bought a quick learn book and we take it with us always if we're not going for a training. So hopefully we can make ourselves understandable in the future and be able to get past with our simple Thai in six months.

The plumbing system in Thailand is so weak and the pipes are so small that you can't through toilet paper in the toilet! Haha so every toilet has a water hose and you just rinse after sharing your load with the bowl! It's one of the things I'm not liking so much haha and will most likely take some time to get used to but what can you do ;)

I forgot my camera charger so you'll have to wait until we get that fixed to see pictures but me and Ivar are now official students of Raway Muay Thai camp. Here on this website you can see everything that the camp and neighborhood has to offer and information and stuff if you are interested, http://www.rawaimuaythai.com/new-students.htm this link is at the new students section so you can just go to the home page if you want to look more into it, but me and Ivar are there pretty soon if you scroll down.

So more later, off to the second training today. And thanks to everybody that comment on the blogs and the guestbook! It makes blogging hundred times more fun to see that there are actually some people reading it :D
Gísli

Time for the second blog and even though we don‘t have a tight schedule like we did back in Iceland fitting a blog in there is not as easy as you would think. We have gotten into a daily routine now and have started to train with everybody after a day of beginners training where we learned all the techniques and wrapping the hands, which I‘m now are finally getting a hang of, Ívar practiced a bit more so he‘s better at it.

So the first days have been nice but tiring. Trainings start at 6:30 with about 3,5 km (2,2 miles) run and then if you can, 20 minutes of jumping rope. So far I‘m up to 15 but that‘s a great progress from the first day where 5 minutes seemed like hell. And after that it‘s stretching as a group and then pad and big boxing bag workouts with many rounds and little rest. The second training starts with the same but no run and so far it has been a lot of the same so I still have to see how it will develop. Though in the end of the second training we learn Mauy Thai, not just sparring with trainers so that‘s fun.

You‘re supposed to match up with someone your size so me and Ivar haven‘t at least yet gotten to train techniques together but maybe someday. But today (Monday) I was gonna train with Brandon, but the trainers set me up with Ryan, the biggest guy in the gym, most likely up to two meters high and big and strong! Haha as bad as he looked like he turned out to be good to train with and I just got more intense to hold on to him, Ivar got Brandon and they did great together.

So enough of training, I could talk forever about trainings and I‘m really holding back so I hope it‘s not dead boring to read! But the evenings so far have been really easy going. We have been so tired every night after all the training and just getting used to the heat that we‘re crawling to bed around 9 pm. We‘ve done some walking around the neighborhood to get to know the place a bit more and yesterday we walked around the entire closest surrounding. Three hour walk, it was a day off so it was pretty good. The original idea was to go to the beach and through some football around and hang out with some of the guys. There are three beaches around us (but apparently we only know of two) and the one we went to is only for boats, there is sand but ropes everywhere so there‘s no way to play around. So because of that we decided to just keep walking and the town kind of runs in circle so we would never get lost. On the way we met some of the guys we‘re training with and they were going to the huge marked at Phuket Town so we decided to join in. It‘s really cool experience to be there. Thai food everywhere along with clothes and everything a normal marked has. We bought some Muay Thai shorts and vegetable.

We rented scooters (ísl. vespur) on Saturday and drove around Rawai and then bit further out of the town. It was really fun and playing with the traffic is the hardest part because apparently there are no traffic rules and there are no cops keeping the speed down or something. So having the scooters helped a lot going around so we might do that often but have to be careful though, haha have had tons of warnings from everybody so no worries we are being extremely careful, even though Ivar had a minor crash in the beginning which was really just funny. But maybe more on that later.
We're going to have lunch and then head to training. Blog soon if I can ;)
Gísli