ยินดีต้อนรับสู่ประเทศไทย

I am here. I finally made it! I have been looking forward to this moment for so long and now it is reality, I am so excited!
The flight from Kuala Lumpur to Phuket was nice and short. I had just fallen asleep when we were ready to land again.
I was so excited to go to Thailand. It was not just about going to Thailand but about what I will do there. A few months ago I decided I want to learn Muay Thai kickboxing and so I booked a training camp in Phuket for one month.
At least four hours training a day, six days a week and living in Thailand... what else do I want!
When I arrived in Phuket I realized that I had messed up my booking with the camp a little bit, I was ond day early and so I had to stay in a Hostel for one night before I could actually check in. When I finally arrived at the gym on the next day, everything was closed because it was Sunday and nobody works there on sunday - congratulations Maria, perfect timing as always.
Lost in Thailand and with a huge backpack on my back I met Ajamal, a professional MMA fighter from Afghanistan, who trained in the same camp as I was supposed to check in. He helped me getting in contact with the people from the camp and so I could finally check into my room and get myself sorted. He has been living and fighting in Moscow for a long time and since he couldn't really speak English I had to to speak Russian... Well, it worked, I can still speak a little bit and understand almost everything.

My street

I am staying in a room 10 minutes walk from the Phuket Top Team gym, with my own bathroom, air-condition and a shared kitchen. It is very beautiful here and nice and warm and we have a very annoying cat who always wants to have attention.
Sunday is always rest day,  so I had to wait till Monday until I could start with the training.
"8!..9!...10!...1!....2!...3!..." the trainer next to me shouted.
Sweat was dripping from my face and my whole body and my clothes were drenched as if I would have jumped into a pool of water. I don't know how many push-ups I did but I know it was a lot.

The gym

The training is very tough, I love it! Every morning we start at 7:30AM, two hours of skipping rope, boxing, kicking, push-ups, clinching, sit-ups, sparring, more push-ups, more sit-ups, boxing again and so on. After the two hours I am usually so exhausted that I have to rest for the next three hours before I am able to move again.
The same training again in the afternoon.
The classes are usually quite full, sometimes there are up to 40 people training together. A little bit too crowded I think because the trainers can't really concentrate on one person. Otherwise it is great! The training is really hard and so I can feel pretty much every single muscle in my body but it is a very satisfying feeling, it is the good kind of pain!
It is my third day here today and when I woke up this morning I could hardly move. My legs, my arms, my shoulders, my back, my neck... everything is in pain but my wrists and angles also hurt so I decided to take it a little slow today, only one training in the afternoon. I have already done four trainings and it is so much fun, I am loving it!

I can always see Big Buddha on my way home

Apart from the training there is not much else to do here. The gym is on one main street, which is full of fitness food places that offer "fighter menus", Protein Shakes and "fitness cakes". There are also a lot of gear stores, many Thai-massage salons and at least five or six more gyms, including the famous Tiger Muay Thai.
Well, this is what my next month is gonna be like. Train, eat, sleep - repeat!

I rented a scooter to be able to drive around and explore the island