Ao Nang Daily Grind: Voyaging Village Week Two
An amazing place to work (and play)
Our apartment in Ao Nang has a fabulous view over the town, of not just the ocean, but the fabulous limestone cliffs that surround the city. It’s a fabulous place to work, and we take it easy most days, checking out some restaurants, and enjoying some pool time. It’s a bit rainy on some days, so it’s nice that there is really high quality food in Ao Nang.
In particular, we visit Madras, an Indian restaurant that makes everything to order and is thus able to make non-spicy Indian curries. Amazing. We go there twice. And the coffeeshop (Cafe 8.9) where the golf cart from our apartment lets off has an amazing California-style build your own bowl meal that we eat three times. It’s great to get healthy vegetables and simple but flavorful grilled chicken after our week of Thai buffets in Chiang Rai. In Thailand they have a delicious red rice called “rice berry” that is super delicious. Also of note is a high end elevated Thai restaurant, Techo Vayo, with amazing food, and a miniature night market with all the staples, like deep fried omelets.
The beach at Ao Nang itself isn’t great as it’s more of a busy boardwalk right next to the busy street. There are a ton of restaurants, shopping and nightlife though, which makes it super fun at night when it cools down. But if you walk to the left after hitting the beach, you get to a pedestrian-only section and a more laid back vibe. Keep going, and you hit the “monkey trail”.
This set of wooden staircases rises high along the limestone cliffs. Along the path there are dozens of monkeys who mostly mind their own business but can get a bit grabby if tourists start feeding them, resulting in a monkey-jam. It’s a very steep uphill and then downhill climb, but at the end is a beautiful and mostly secluded beach. The sunset from there must be gorgeous (we had a week of mostly cloudy skies). The Ao Nang beaches (like Railey beach and this one) are especially gorgeous because of the high cliffs that wrap around them, giving the sense of wild seclusion despite being just a 10 minute walk from the bustling city.
Fire Show
Our favorite thing about Ao Nang must be the fire boys who put on the world’s best fire show every night at sunset at the beach. We literally go every night we can and end up seeing the show six times. Each time is slightly different but always amazing. The variety of fire implements, the choreography, the creativity, and the skill that they demonstrate are all top notch.
They do fire poi, human pyramids, staff, sticks, anything you can imagine. They use fireworks, fire baskets that create embers like glowbugs, and giant poi that create amazing sparks across the water. They have kids doing fire poi, someone in a wheelchair doing fire poi, and even throw the fire poi to each other twenty yards down the beach over crowds of tourists. After the show is when the fun really starts.
For a $3 tip, they will spin fire in front and around you, even letting you hold the poi yourself. Mama Bear does it first, then me. Throughout the week we keep wanting to give them tips, so Baby Bear does it as well. Then we all do it again. It’s super hot being so close to all that fire, but it’s thrilling as well.
Muay Thai
There are lots of advertisements everywhere for Muay Thai Boxing, so we decide to give it a try one night. We contact the arena through WhatsApp and negotiate a discounted rate and a pickup. The fights don’t even start until 9pm, so Baby Bear stays home for this one. The night starts with a traditional Thai dance in the ring. The first fight is a flyweight round with two local boxers. They start with a traditional blessing ceremony, going to each corner and praying. Then the fight starts, each boxer tentatively feeling the other out. When Round Two hits, the pace picks up, and then suddenly a knock out! Fight is over.
Throughout the night there are six fights, and they’re all quite different, though they all end with a knockout. The fighters are all very respectful here, doing traditional blessings and bowing to each other, and making sure the other opponent is OK when getting knocked down. For the local fighters this is their day job, and safety is important. But there is a group here from a club in Italy that is super jazzed to fight. A woman from the UK explodes with joy after winning her bout. There is an Italian in an international boxing fight (no kicking) who loses to someone from China but puts up a great fight. It’s amazing seeing how different Thai boxing and International Boxing is. Another Italian wins, but it seems like a bit of a no-brainer given that he looks to be a few weight classes above the local they found to fight him. Then there’s the last match.
The Italian looks like a total brute: completely ripped, tattooed, crew cut hair, and just mean. His opponent is a Thai man who’s a little shorter, and quiet a bit pudgier. He looks like someone who fought competitively ten years ago, had kids, retired and just got called back for this fight. When the fight starts, the brute comes out swinging, aggressively aiming for a knock out from the first punch. The local fighter defends and survives. But the brute is out for blood. Every time the ref breaks the two apart, the brute goes for an extra swing. The ref yells at him and physically pushes him to get him to listen. The brute doesn’t bow or show any respect, and at the end of each round he tries to sneak in a few more shots. At the start of each round, he almost pushes the ref out the way so he can start swinging. The ref looks exasperated and pleads to his coach on the side to rein in his fighter.
At first it seemed that our local fighter was just going to take it easy, put in minimal effort, and go home. But as the rounds go on, he starts fighting back harder and harder. You can see him getting angry at the way this disrespectful foreigner is fighting. Despite getting brutalized, he refuses to give up and stays in even when the ref seems to want him to stay down. Unlike all the other fights, he lasts into the 10th and final round. He’s all in now. You can see he really wants to beat the Italian brute. He believes he can win. Before the round starts he stands up on the ropes and raises up his arms. The crowd goes wild. They love an underdog.
Alas, though he puts up a good fight, our Thai fighter ultimately gets knocked out, and the Italian brute wins. Loud boos fill the stadium, but when the Thai man is able to stand up and walk unaided out of the ring, this shifts to raucous cheers. Though the crowd is almost entirely foreigners, this local hero has captured their hearts with his incredible grit.
Hong Island
Despite the forecast of rain, we manage decide to go on another boat trip, this time to the beautiful Hong Island. We luck out and have an amazing time. The long dock to the island is completely made from floating plastic blocks. Walking on it feels like being instantly drunk. We can see the waves propagate along the length of the dock, creating ripples that threaten to throw us into the air when they hit our feet.
On the island we do a little bit of snorkeling. The beach itself is beautiful. There’s a hike up tons of stairs to a viewpoint. Our “guide” on the boat doesn’t really talk and didn’t tell us to bring our shoes, so we end up attempting this with just our snorkel socks. It’s quite painful as the stairs are punched metal with the sharp end pointing into our feet. But we make it eventually.
The next beach we go to is even prettier. It’s tiny but super picturesque as it’s surrounded almost completely by towering cliffs. Only a small sliver is open to let the ocean in. It’s a great place to relax and enjoy the water.
Night Market
Our final night, we decide to go to the local night market (after watching the nightly fire show of course) just a mile or two down the road. Tuktuk drivers claim it’s the same price regardless of the number of people, so we join up with our friends and squeeze all six of us into a single tuktuk. It’s a party (literally as the tuktuk has party lights and music blasting)!
The night market is tons of fun. There is a dizzying array of food stalls, from Thai rolled ice cream to Japanese okonomiyaki and crocodile meat. It’s a feast for the eyes as well as the stomach. The dining area is in front of a large stage with great entertainment. There is a really amazing traditional Thai dancer followed by American music sung by locals.
Amazingly, the fire boys come here and put on a show as well (yes, we see them twice in one night). We close up the night by dancing to the great live music. What a fun last night in Ao Nang.
