Last time I was in Thailand I spent all my time in Phuket. The training was good, but I think I was on the beach more than I was at the gym.

But also, I have heard nothing but good things about Chai Yai gym.

Either way, Chiang Mai is a wonderful city, I’m not big on big cities and I didn’t enjoy Bangkok that much. But, that’s just my opinion once again.

I have only trained at one camp in Thailand, J. Prapa in Phuket we I have been twice, great atmosphere but during high season sometimes a bit crowded.

Great people aswell, with Jomhod Kiatidisak the most well known trainer there.

All in all a nice place that I can wholeheartedly recommend, im going back there myself in little over two months

I agree with everything koolkick said.

I particularly liked the private lessons. I had a heap of them. The dude showed me a lot of techniques that he thought would best suit my natural attributes—old and slow ;P He also showed me the best fighting strategies and techniques to use as a southpaw.

I can’t wait till I go back!

Hope you feel better soon Nopstar. Going through shit isn’t fun, but at least you’ve got the best Muay Thai site on the internet! No other site comes close.

Cheers

But I digress- Mai Lee good fu*k!

Also, you taste like Mai-Lee.

Jake: I envy you. It’s going to be amazing. I’ll look forward to hearing your comparison of Bangplee and Pattaya in terms of training quality. I’d normally prefer a more hardcore training environment, but I’d love to ‘train’ simply by watching Yod and Kaew all day…

The Bangplee camp is much smaller than the Pattaya sports resort – which is way fancy and offers many more activities than Muay Thai. My Thai trainer, Neungsiam, scowls and says that Pattaya is not a good place for fighters to seriously train, on account of it being so “full of tourists and beaches”. Maybe he meant to pronounce it as “bitches” though, as he was referring specifically to Pattaya’s potentially distracting sex-tourism scene. On the other hand, Fairtex’ top fighters (Yod, Naruepol) are at the Pattaya camp. Kaew and Apidej were also both at Bangplee in 2004, but I’m not sure if they still are (doubt it). Apidej would cheerfully feed the birds each morning and give you a big hug if he saw you. You might wonder if he was crazy… or just enlightened.

Anyway, about Bangplee. Though it is small, it is a fully equipped professional Muay Thai camp. It is also quite beautiful and lush: a nicely crafted pro Muay Thai camp + fitness club surrounded by trees and a river in an otherwise semi-developed region (supermarkets and other businesses relatively close by, Bangkok 30-60mins by taxi). No concrete ring-floors there: it caters to Muay Thai travelers (some English is spoken there) and offers a range of accommodations and amenities: various room configurations (with or w/o AC/TV/roommates/etc); freshwater pool, semi-Western style cafe (decent prices when I was there), Fairtex pro shop (better prices than abroad, but still relatively expensive for Thailand: most of the US fighters preferred the Twins shop at Lumpini), a fitness room (with treadmills, ellipticals, bikes, free weights & machines; and fitness trainer), a beautiful high-ceilinged yoga studio, and clean showers. Overall, the place is very clean, cheerful and familial – many of the fighters’ and trainers’ relatives live and work there, too. Fairtex’ gear manufacturing was also based there and so many of the fighters had custom apparel made for them on the spot.

“Everything is harder in a Thai camp”, said silver-medalist, Evan Esguerra, as we clung to the ropes after another monster 6-minute round of pad training. The Scottish team was also training with us, and one of their fighters, Alex, responded weakly, “Oh, it’s a grrrrreat sporrrt!”

Bangplee has a quad of small rings, and plenty of shin-breaking bags of various sizes and singular hardness (which the skinny 13 year-old Thais have no trouble caving in with their kicks). All of us ‘farang’ noted that a distinctly different sound was made by their kicks (CRACKETY-SHMACK!) than any of the Westerners’ (which went something more like “Bmff”). Humbling. Inspiring.

The twice-daily training was very good, but I was already blessed to be training with Jongsanan, Ganyao and Enn Fairtex in San Francisco. The main difference was that pad-training rounds were 6-minutes long at Bangplee. And the heat. As bad as that sounds, it actually forced everyone to learn how to relax (sabai! sabai!), breathe and keep their cool in the thick heat and humidity. Efficiency and composure are the name of the game, and fatigue can be a great teacher if you don’t give up.

Overall, the biggest benefit for me was not the actual training, but the total immersion in Muay Thai culture. People are very ‘real’ there: simple, sincere and present in their everyday lives. I loved the monk-like lifestyle, with the whole day devoted to refining your self as both weapon and place of peace. Living for a month on a serious camp, surrounded by top pros who live and breathe the sport as their regular day job (including the tiny 8 year-olds, from whom I learned much by watching) teaches you something you can’t learn abroad. It helped me begin to understand the proper attitude and pragmatism that empower Muay Thai: to be simple and natural, cool and patient, awake, at peace and unhesitatingly decisive when it’s time. These aren’t just qualities they put on in the ring: they are part of the every day Thai-Buddhist culture.

If you are open to it, this experience should be available at most decent camps. I would probably visit other gyms on future visits, but I definitely wasn’t disappointed by my experience. I would say that Fairtex/Bangplee is a good first place to train if you want a little comfort around your training (the training itself is still happily uncomfortable).

If you love Muay Thai, I hope you will find a way to train in Thailand, sooner than later. Every day, there’s a part of my heart that asks: “When will we go back?”

*wai*