This Friday (26 November 2010) is the 3rd Bangkok Fight Night at the Bangkok British Club. I’m told there will be about 10 fights on the night with fighters from around the world taking part. Quite a few of them are training at the Fighting Spirit Muay Thai gym in Silom, Bangkok and there is a mixture of Thais and farang fighting on the night.
Tickets start at 800 baht and there is an optional sit down meal on the night too.
There is also the Ploenchit Fair AKA the British Fair the following day at the Shrewsbury International School down by the river near Silom. So if you are feeling home sick or want a thoroughly British weekend then this one’s for you!
I love Thai food but can’t eat it 24/7. I probably ate Thai food for most meals when I first came out to Bangkok but after a year or so out here I eat more Western food alongside the Thai dishes. Back home I used to love cooking a Sunday roast for my friends or going down the pub for one. In Bangkok cooking a roast dinner is not really practical due to the expense and the hassle of finding all the required components.
But thankfully there are lots of places in Bangkok that offer a Sunday Lunch. Some do an all you can eat carvery and others do a standard meal. Out of the many pubs in Bangkok that serve a Sunday Roast I’ve only been to two but both have been very good. The pubs I have been to that do a Roast Dinner are Molly Malone’s on soi Convent, just off Silom road near Sala Daeng BTS and the Londoner Brew Pub on Sukhumvit soi 33 near Phrom Pong BTS (opposite the Emporium mall).
Both pubs serve the main Sunday Roast staples which include:
Meats: Chicken, Beef, Pork, Lamb & Ham
Potatoes: Roast & Mashed
Veg: assorted veg including carrots, peas and cauliflower
Cauliflower Cheese
Yorkshire Puddings
A full range of Sauces and Gravy
Dessert
Soup & Bread
As well as all this The Londoner also does a big range of salad, fish and cheese and crackers for afters.
Although The Londoner does have a bigger selection including lots of dessert options my award of the best Roast Dinner in Bangkok goes to Molly Malone’s in Silom. There meat is nicer and for me that is the corner stone of a good Sunday Lunch: nice meat!
Although both pubs are mock Irish/Ye Olde English pubs the atmosphere in Molly’s is a bit better although if you can get a booth in The Londoner it is probaby more comfortable.
There is not much to separate these two Bangkok Sunday Lunches and they both cost between 400 and 500 baht so I recommend you try them both out and decide for yourself.
If you know of any other good pubs in Bangkok that do a Sunday Lunch please leave a comment and I will check them out!
Seeing as Thailand is the home of Muay Thai and Bangkok is the capital of Thailand you’d be forgiven for thinking the place would be over run with Muay Thai, or Thai Boxing gyms. But from my experience in the city this is not quite the case. But if you are looking to train in Muay Thai in Bangkok there are a few decent options available to you.
Boxer Rebellion. This place offers much more than just Muay Thai so it is a good place to go if you want to combine fighting styles or try out a few other disciplines. They also do Western or normal boxing classes here too. Boxer Rebellion, Bangkok, is found in a tower block on one of the streets coming off of Sukhumvit: soi 13 to be precise. They have taken over a few offices on one of the floors which have been converted into gyms with padded floors and all the relevant equipment such as punching bags and pads. Classes run from the afternoon into the evening during the week and on Saturday afternoons and the nearest BTS is Nana on the Sukhumvit line. When I went the instructor was farang and the small class learning Muay Thai were also farang. http://boxer-rebellion.net/index.php
Bangkok Fight Club. Like Boxer Rebellion the Bangkok Fight Club Muay Thai gym is also on Sukhumvit but a bit further up on Sukhumvit soi 55 AKA soi Thong Lor and the nearest BTS is Thong Lor. The Bangkok Fight Club also offers classes in MMA and BBJ so you can combine styles and like Boxer Rebellion the gym is located in a tower block with one of the suites turned into a fighting gym. Classes start at 6.30pm throughout the week. When I dropped by the teacher of the Muay Thai class was a Thai fella and the class was a mixture of farang men and women with a few Thais there too. http://www.bangkokfightclub.com/
Fighting Spirit Gym. This place is different to Boxer Rebellion and the Fight Club in that it offers accommodation and is outside rather than in an office block. Due to its location it is much bigger and has a full size ring as well as fitness equipment and free weights. You can either chose to stay at the gym or just come for a workout on a drop in basis. When I popped by for a look around I found out the place is run by an Aussie guy and has three Thai trainers on the staff to put you through your paces. Despite being outdoors it doesn’t get unbearably hot during a workout as you might expect in Bangkok and there are showers and changing facilities there for you to use. Fighting Spirit is location on Silom road between soi 9 and soi 11 and the nearest BTS is probably Sala Daeng or Chong Nonsi. http://www.fightingspiritgym.com/
Some of the Fitness First gyms and California Wow fitness centres around Bangkok also offer Muay Thai classes but I haven’t been able to check any of these out yet. There is also a Muay Thai place near Khao San road called Vorapin Gym Muay Thai School which is popular.
If you know of any more places to train in Muay Thai in Bangkok let me know.
Phnom Penh is the capital city of Cambodia and one of the places I have visited recently on my travels. Whenever I go to a city in South East Asia I always, rightly or wrongly, compare it to Bangkok which has been my home for the last year.
Most of the cities I had been to before Cambodia put Bangkok in the shade but I think Phnom Penh was the first one that made me realise Bangkok isn’t all bad!
I do like Bangkok but it has a lot of bad points, mainly the layout and planning of the city and the lack of outdoor space.
People moan about the state of the pavements in Bangkok but after Phnom Penh they are a relative luxury. Phnom Penh had a seedy vibe to it that Bangkok doesn’t seem to have despite its infamous red-light areas and dubious massages parlours found all over the city. Phnom Penh didn’t seem to have anything like the open sex-trade of Bangkok but there was an air of deviance down nearly every street.
The poor parts of Phnom Penh seem to cover the majority of the city but turn a corner and it is not uncommon to find yourself on a street of walled mansions with security guards manning the gates. When it came to cars and traffic in general most of the population of Phnom Penh made do with old scooters and clapped out cars but there were a significant number of high end Range Rovers and other imported cars on the road which probably cost a few years slaries to the average Phnom Penh citizen.
The main shopping mall in Phnom Penh was a sorry affair that didn’t realy have any western brands in and I didn’t see a a Starbucks or McDonalds on the streets of Phnom Penh. I guess the poverty levels here makes it not worth investing in for the time being.
So Bangkok wins the day for me. It might be noisy, smelly and dirty but it is pretty easy a city to live in with many of the creature comforts from home plus with lots of the local culture still intact.
Today I woke in Bangkok for the first time for a while after about seven weeks of holidaying. I didn’t bother putting the air-con in the bedroom on last night before bed as I thought the fan would suffice but woke up at about 4am covered in sweat and feeling like I’d been trapped in a green house all night (note to self: always leave the air-con on at night).
When I finally woke up proper I got ready and then went out for some lunch. I’m not sure if it was the jetlag or being back in the humidity of Bangkok or just being in unfamiliar surroundings again but I felt a bit strange walking to the shops. After being in England for a few weeks, being the only non-Thai person and hearing everyone speaking Thai felt quite strange. I’m sure I will get used to it again in a couple of days but I did feel quite out of place. No one was staring at me but I did get a few looks and definitely felt like I was in a strange land. A bit like how I felt when I first moved out here a year ago.
Singapore is only just over two hours flight from Bangkok and is a great place to spend a weekend if you fancy some time away and want to try something other than a weekend at the beach. (Check flight prices here.)
The city is pretty small and very easy to get around with an underground MRT service and an abundance of taxis but without the traffic problems of Bangkok (mainly thanks to the high road tax and car prices).
There are lots of shopping malls in Singapore. Although they aren’t as big as Central World (RIP) there are a lot more of them and can nearly all be found on Orchard Road. Most Western shops can be found here but the prices for clothes tend to be a bit higher than back in England. You can even see the price in British pounds on the tags which when you convert them should be less than the price in Singapore dollars advertised but I guess shopping here is cheaper than taking a trip back home.
Although it is as hot and humid as Bangkok there isn’t the obvious problem of pollution and the roads and pavements are much wider making Singapore a much more pleasant place to walk around.
There are lots of Western-style pubs, bars and restaurants in Singapore and it definitely feels a lot more like being back in the UK than the expat hangouts of Bangkok. But the prices here are a lot higher here. The price of a local pint of beer (Heineken) in Singapore was about £7 in a run of the mill pub and small cans of beer from 7-11 went for about £3-4. But if you don’t drink much your wallet could survive without too much of a hammering with prices for eating out not more than in London.
The only problem with visiting Singapore is that it is so nice when you get back to Thailand you realise what a dump Bangkok is! But don’t worry Bangers, we still love you.
I haven’t braved the streets of Bangkok to take some photos of the current red shirt protests in Thailand but plenty of other people have. Here are some links to the best photos I have seen so far:
Anyone who has spent much time in Thailand will have noticed that the Thais love their little dogs. The soi dogs are at one end of the spectrum but at the other are the pampered pooches whose feet never touch the floor thanks to their overprotective owners. These dogs come in all shapes and sizes but pugs and poodles seem to be the most popular and the longer the hair the better.
To celebrate this one of the malls in Bangkok, Central Rama 3, is holding a dog fashion show at the moment called Dog Street where you can see the best (or worst) examples of Bangkok dogs.
It is free to get in and far from the red shirt action so if you are bored pop down and see how the other half live.
As it looks like the red shirt protest in Bangkok is coming to end thanks to a strong military crack down this weekend I thought it would be interesting to hear from people how the protests have affected them.
Me personally I have not really been affected that much at all. I have had a few close encounters with armed police and military that I probably would not have done otherwise but apart from that it has been business as usual.
A few times taxis have been hard to find that are willing to go into certain areas but overall it has been ok.
How have you been affected during the past few months of protestation?
As the red shirt protests drew on and the military got involved it soon became clear the army were using live rounds to persuade the protesters to go home. But up until now it hadn’t really been reported that the army were firing live bullets with most reports claiming they were firing rubber bullets. Well, since the increased crack down this weekend the army have setup a few ‘live fire zones’ where I presume they will be firing live rounds at will. It’s a shame to see this happening but at least they are warning people what they are doing and therefore giving them a chance to avoid the area or get out now.
A lot of non-Thai people I have spoken to about the protests can’t understand why the army haven’t gone in like this sooner in a bid to flush the protesters out. With the sudden increase in casualties and fatalities I think we can all see now why the army were reluctant to storm in. Besides, apart from to the mall owners, what harm were the red shirts really doing?
Coming from a country like the UK were public protests are very much restricted if allowed at all it can be hard to understand why this one has been allowed to go on so long but I find it quite refreshing that in parts of the world people are still allowed the freedom to protest. Its just a shame this one had to turn so ugly after a long time of minimal violence. Lets just hope this hasn’t ruined it for future generations and the government doesn’t bring in draconian measures to prevent large gatherings of people.
