That time I went boxing in Ko Phi Phi

I spent a lot of my first world trip partying. I was twenty-five and ready to let loose after a quarter century of sheltered middle-class living. In my mind, a big part of backpacking was meeting other travelers, partying, and saying yes to everything that came your way. And that often led to some outrageous experiences.

How to get into a boxing ring in Ko Phi Phi, Thailand.

Before I started that trip in 2006, I used the website MySpace to meet travelers in advance, because, as an introvert, I was very worried about not making friends while traveling. MySpace had a lot of travel groups, so I contacted people in hopes of meeting them while traveling. (I was an early user of the Web as a social tool; I started a blog in 2001 and met my first girlfriend on Friendster when meeting people online was taboo.)

After landing in Bangkok later that year, I happened to meet Lindsay at the airport, a British girl I was supposed to meet later that week in Krabi. She was with her friends John and Stephanie. Coincidentally, we were on the same flight to Phuket, so we decided to start our trip together early.

In Phuket we had booked accommodation in the hostel made famous by the film The beach. It was as terrible as the movie described, with thin walls, dirty bathrooms and hard beds. We stayed one night.

From there, we drove to Ko Phi Phi, where we planned to spend three nights. The island was still recovering from the tsunami that had devastated it two years earlier, a cacophony of noise as it tried to rebuild. There was debris and construction everywhere, and many businesses were still closed and homes abandoned.

We found a cheap room on the edge of the main town, co-sleeping to save money, a traveler’s most precious commodity.

That night, we did what backpackers do on the island: we partied. We ate cheap food at the bustling night market, with vendors selling overpriced pad thai to travelers who didn’t know any better. From there, we went from bar to bar, getting drunker and drunker, before ending up at the Reggae Bar, famous for two things: buckets of cheap booze and a boxing ring in the middle.

But the ring isn’t for watching professional Thai boxers. No, it’s there for backpackers to watch other backpackers beat the shit out of each other for buckets of free booze. (A “bucket” is Thai whiskey, Red Bull, and Coke in a kiddie beach bucket. It gets you pretty drunk.)

As we got more and more drunk, James challenged me to go boxing in the ring. “Come on! We need more alcohol,” he urged me on.

As the night wore on and the alcohol took its toll, I decided to say “fuck it.” “Well, I’ll do it,” I agreed, giving in to the desire to say yes to anything and impress my new friends.

I found myself in the ring with a huge German guy who was about as drunk as me.

“Go easy on me,” I said. “I’ve never argued.”

“No problem. It’s just for fun anyway,” he replied in a drawn-out, accented voice.

Being drunk, I got a little overzealous and didn’t go easy on him. I got aggressive, landing shots where I could, and the first round was decided in my favor.

In the second, he fought back, not wanting to lose to an American who was half his size. His shots hurt, even in my drunken state.

That round was called for him.

In the last round, we both got a little aggressive. He defeated me easily, because the referee, not wanting me to get too badly beaten, immediately declared the round (and the fight) in his favor.

But everyone loves an underdog, so the crowd went wild with boos.

Trying to please the crowd, the bar ended up giving me a free bucket, and the German guy and I cheered each other on. His friends joined mine, and we partied all night.

The next morning when I woke up, I was stiff as a board and had a terrible hangover. Although I only had a few bruises, I could barely move. Every part of my body ached.

“Why does everything hurt? What did we do last night?”

It took a few minutes, then I got it (so to speak).

“Ohhh, yeah, I boxed with someone last night!”

Although I hadn’t been thinking about the repercussions on my body the night before, I was now very much in tune with them. It was as if a truck had backed up my body several times while I was lying in bed.

My friends and I laughed and joked about how stupid it was to fight someone twice my size over a little alcohol. I stood there in pain while my friends got ready, until I finally had to get dressed too. We headed to the beach to sunbathe on the sand and have breakfast.

Boxing in that ring was one of the most spontaneous things I did on that trip, and while I’ll never do it again, it’s one of those “fuck yeah” moments that brought me closer to my friends and left me with a fond memory.