Muay Thai at Lumpinee Stadium

I don't like boxing.

It was my last day in Bangkok before heading back to Paris, France, and I had only a few bahts and a few hours left. My flight being in the middle of the night, I started thinking how I could spend the night there.

I ended up considering to watch a thai boxing event. As I was in Bangkok, having a limited time, I told myself it was the only occasion in life, perhaps, to assist one of these. I went to the main stadium in town, Lumpinee (also written Lumpini) stadium, close to the night market.

While I was first considering buying a ticket in the middle of the Thai crowd, I was lead to think a seat next to the ring would be a better choice for a tourist like me. I came early enough to see the first fight. At my left were seating a bunch of fat, drunk white guys. At my right were seating, fat, drunk white guys. Oh my god... What was I doing there?

Then, I saw two Thai teenagers, one in red, and one in blue, climbing on the ring, under the advises of their coaches. They started to make a Buddhist pray on the ring, and then walked around it, a glove on the ring upper cord. To "seal" the fight between the two of them.

As the bell rang, they started to fight. And a entrancing music started. I turned my head and saw three old guys playing, one had cymbals, the other drum, and the last one a sort of pipe, like the one of a snake charmer. As the fight went further on, the pace was very slowly accelerating... To stop all of a sudden at the end of the round.

The fight itself was not as violent as expected. The "art of the eight limbs" (because you can strike from 8 part of the body - fists, feet, elbows, knees) leads to quick wins, as at the very second one dominate the other really, the fight is over.

The night went on and on, the fighters were stronger and heavier little by little, and the thai crowd started to get more and more numerous. Before each fight, the "pre-fight" rituals were different. Like war dances, both as prayers, warm-up and intimidations techniques. The "seal" was always the last thing they were doing before the fight started.

The room was warming up, and giant fans from the roof, after a time, were only moving a overheated subtropical air from one place to the other.

The crowd was becoming more and more crazy, as the fights are gambled upon. Whenever the blue was hitting the red, one half of the room was shouting "aaaaah". Whenever the red was hitting the blue, the other half was answering "uuuuuh". You could see people fanatically mimicking what the good "hit" should have been.

The peaceful Thais had a perfect moment of "wild trance", as if Muay Thai was the only moment where they could express any kind of violence.

With the heat, the music, the wild crowd, and the mere brutality of the fight itself... It was a real mystical experience that everyone should try at least once...

I hate boxing. But I'd well come back to Lumpini Stadium to taste that "Fight Club" spirit again...