To read Part One, click here. To read Part Two, click here. To read Part Three, click here.

I think we went to Phuket on a Friday and planned to start our Muay Thai training on Monday. Our hotel was absolutely beautiful and it was a great place to call home for a month. Every day we had breakfast at the restaurant to the left of the pool. It was incredible.

The fruit was so good, we must have eaten 1,000 pounds of fresh fruit while we were there.

There are a lot of Muay Thai gyms in Phuket and obviously, we were pretty serious about becoming expert fighters so we decided to go to AKA Thailand. It had really good reviews and a lot class options. The facilities were pretty cool too.

It was all outdoors and even when it was torrential downpour, we were out there. Kinda fun. Here’s the crazy thing, regardless of your experience level, you’re in the same class with everyone else, including professional fighters. Yes, we were training next to people who were training for fights. Like real fights. The guy below in the red and white shorts was in our class. He’s from China and about 1% body fat. He won his fight.

And there weren’t only just Muay Thai fighters there. They have MMA and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu training, too. There were some world ranked athletes training while we were there. We are idiots so we had no clue who they were, but we tried to watch them practice when we could. And they scared us. A lot.

I know you’ll be surprised to hear that neither of us had a professional or amateur fight while we were there. And actually, we both decided that we’re not that into fighting…ha ha! I didn’t even want to spar. I can hit and kick a bag all day long, but I don’t want to punch anyone in the face and I really don’t want to be punched in the face. From day one, both J and I were assigned a trainer. I had Bird and he had Bank. They were awesome. Bird is on the right, Bank on the left. They were super nice and so patient. They laughed at us (a lot).

I was so serious I had to tape my toes because they started splitting on the rubber mats (you’re not allowed to wear shoes). Hard core. And it was such a good workout. I could barely walk for the first week. They had long runs scheduled on the weekends (the trainers would drive by on motorbikes to keep track of us as we ran up and down all the f*cking hills).

The view was beautiful, but the running made me want to die.

It was fun to meet the other people in class. They were from all over the world, some were staying for days, some for months. It was fascinating. They were all surprised that two Americans had enough time off work to be there for five weeks. J always made sure to track down the Germans so he could speak to them (he’s fluent in German) and I avoided most people, most of the time (per usual).

When we weren’t at the gym, we did all the tourist things. We went to Maya Bay (from the movie The Beach), Patong (a place to party and see ping pong shows), the Big Buddha, night markets, and just drove all around the island on our death mobile motorbike.

J decided we should rent a motorbike and I was so scared on that bike. OMG. It was the best way to get around, but all I heard about was tourists crashing on motorbikes (and we saw a few crashes too). J drove it and I hung on for dear life on the back. We fell over a few times, but overall, I think it was a success and it really was the easiest way to get around.

We had a really amazing time, even if we didn’t become professional Muay Thai fighters. Oh and we didn’t kill each other – that was the real surprise.