Phuket Muay Thai Red Page Stories

In the newspapers in Mexico you will always find a section called NOTA ROJA, which literally translates as RED NOTE or RED PAGES and in this section they mainly talk about the police stories, murders, theft, rapes and the terrible things which peculiarly is the section that most people read even if they don’t accept it, myself included (I know I am the worst).

Anyway I am back in Thailand for my 5th time, happy as ever and also happy to discover new things every time I am here, especially the little things which maybe I will talk about it in another submission if Mr. Stick allows me of course. This time I would like to share with you guys about my time here.

I have been training in Phuket in a Muay Thai camp in a place called Chalong which is like 30 minutes from Patong and the famous touristic areas of Bangla Road (ohhh yeah). On this occasion I decided to focus on health and avoid all the temptations that this place obviously offers. Believe it, is has been really hard but I made it and the experience has been great. I feel amazing and also stronger but I don’t want to tell you about my fitness experience this time but about the things that happened and 3 stories in particular…

THE SOUTH AFRICAN CONMAN

In my time here I met a guy who I'll call Cheap Charlie who claimed to be from South Africa. This guy was training for so long in this place that he has become part of the furniture. Everybody knows him and everybody avoids him. The reason? Because he owes every**ckingbody! This guy’s favorite sport is not Muay Thai or MMA, but owing money to God. He has been living for free for the past months, and stays in different hotels for like one month where he gives his passport as a deposit and then he happily announces that he is broke and that he needs to go to Western Union to get money at which point he disappears only to go back to a different hotel and repeat the same routine! How has he been able to continuingly do this? Well that is the part I don’t understand. He has several passports (I don’t know how he gets them) and also because there are people coming and going all the time and he borrows money and waits until the person leaves and asks the new guy for more money. I was close to being one of his victims but a friend of mine kindly informed me of this guy and I completely avoided him. Last thing I knew he was kicked out of the last hotel and the manager told the police and gave his details so now I think he is gone for good.

THE CALIFORNIAN TRAINER THAT NEVER DRANK

It is common in the camp that sometimes we will have some trainers, masters, sensei, krup from all over the world to give some seminars. Sometimes it is one day, sometimes one week. There was one guy from California, let's call him Caifornia Jack, a really good guy and he was an expert in Wrestling (not WFE) and BJJ (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu). I took a couple of classes with him and it was good but this guy talked too fast and he was really short so it was hard to keep up with him. A friend of mine asked him for some private lessons and he declines because he said he was too busy, then we find out he went snorkeling JA! This guy always said that he never drank alcohol because it was bad.

A couple of weeks later I saw him having dinner in the various places around the camp that serve western style BBQ along with traditional Thai food for a great price, and guess what? He had a nice cold Singha in his hand, ok no problem he is just relaxing. What is one beer going to do, right? Next day a seminar conducted but California Jack was scheduled, I showed up and found a sigh saying SEMINAR CANCELLED. When I asked what happened they told us this:

He took his rental bike after having some beers (hellooo) to Patong, to those guys who are not familiar with the routes in Phuket island is that is full of hills and the roads while they are in good shape the traffics is sometimes crazy and also now it is the raining season so it is dangerous to drive sober, and criminal to drive drunk! Anyway this guy ran a red light and hit a Thai girl in a scooter. He was not wearing a helmet (typical) and woke up in the hospital with a prostatic iron in his leg and 20 stitches in his face. The Thai girl apparently just got some stitches and she was somehow ok. The Police of course blame him partly because he was a farang and partly because of the alcohol level in his blood.

Wait, this does not end here. The total amount for his little mischief was $30,000 USD plus the scooter, thank you very much! What did he do? Well again I don’t understand how but after 2 days he got up somehow, packed his stuff and took a plane home. Yes ladies and gentlemen, the old and good GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE. Apparently the super-efficient Thai police forgot to keep his passport. When they find out he went out of the hospital they came looking for him only to find an empty bed and maybe just maybe a goodbye note!

THE BRIT VS THE YANK

Well this one maybe you already know. It was all over the place a couple of weeks ago, so I think is ok to use the real names. A British national known as the “Pitbull” Lee Aldhouse who has been training in Rawai Muay Thai for some time killed a decorated American Afghan war veteran. Sounds like a movie, right? Well it isn’t!

I met these guys sometimes different camps to get together to train. The American guy was quite normal, a big, easy-going guy. The Brit? Well he was half the time so full of steroids that anybody would stay away from him, but this happened in a bar were all the people that is training gets together from time to time, called Freedom Bar, right in Rawai. This place is a normal bar with bargirls and they even have one of those machines that can measure the power of your punch and the record was held by guess who? Yep, the Brit guy.

Apparently one night (I wasn’t there luckily) the American guy was with this “girlfriend” and he went to the toilet where the Brit guy was allegedly having some drugs and then somehow they got into an argument that resulted in a fight and the American guy got the upper hand. However, it did not stop there and the Brit guy was so outraged by this because he always claimed he was “invicible” ja! So he went into a 7 Eleven, got two knives and attacked this guy and his Thai girlfriend who tried to shield his boyfriend. I want a girlfriend like that! Seriously guys, it is in Youtube – check it out just type the name of the guy and you will see it!

Pitbull followed the American to his place, attacked him and killed him! Result, well now the once again supper-efficient Thai police thinks he is somewhere Laos, Malaysia or I don’t know. Babilonia?? He escaped and that's the end of that story.

So there you are, like I said, there is always something new going on in Thailand and I could tell you more and more but maybe you will get bored and I am getting tired. My advice here is just mind your own damn business while you are in Thailand, avoid troubles, don’t take advantage of nice people and don’t go around stabbing people with 7 Eleven knives because the day will come that Thai people will have had enough of all of us and they will just forbid us to come to the kingdom and that my friends will be a real tragedy.

SALUDOS!

Stickman's thoughts:

For sure, Thailand is a magnet for some real weirdoes!

This Pitbull character will get caught – it's just a matter of time…