Chinese New Year and Muay Thai

As a working person, I have seriously come to enjoy my weekends. Though my job is fun, entertaining, and really not that hard, it's really great having absolutely no responsibilities on the weekends. It's been working out that every other weekend I have something planned, whether it's my friends coming to Ayutthaya, me going down to Bangkok for a night, or going on a weekend trip. On the weekends we don't plan anything, something always ends up popping up, whether it be a spontaneous visit by some friends, or we find out that something is going on in Ayutthaya by some sort of market or stage magically appearing.

Ladyboy making omelets

one of the many street vendors

Last weekend (and the entire week leading up to it) was part of Ayutthaya's Chinese New Year celebration. Just after our block of Narseuan Rd., the main road in town, the street got closed down after 5 and a huge market filled with the usual moon bounces, miniature roller coasters, vendors, and carnival games was set up. Also set up were multiple stages for various performances. Being here 5 months and after seeing 2 other festivals of the same caliber, I was not nearly as impressed with the magnitude that Thais celebrate every single holiday. It is amazing how they pull out the same bells and whistles multiple times a year and are unafraid to shut down major roads and traffic patterns. Even though Thailand is not China (duh), the Chinese New Year is a big deal here because a large percentage (at least 30%) of Thais are of Chinese descent.

The setup for Chinese New Year differed in that there was a lot more food and there were red and gold Chinese lanterns strung throughout the streets where the celebrations took place. The celebration even spread down to Soi Farang, which is the backpacker district of Ayutthaya, where we generally hang out on the weekends. They had beer stands where they sold beer towers, and a stage for a live band that was actually pretty good.
The celebration cut into one day of school when it was announced mid-day that after 1:40 classes would be cancelled so students could go home because there was going to be a parade starting in front of our school and ending in the center of town. As reasonable as this is, I walked around and watched the parade after school and saw many of my students around, meaning that they were not worried about getting home. And even though the parade was going on, there was still traffic in the road.

One of my students in the parade

me with a beer tower

We ended up watching the parade outside of my school. It was very slow-moving, but had many floats with Chinese/Thai dancers on them and several school marching bands, one of which was ours. When we got tired of standing in the head and watching, we headed back to the center of town where we entered into a cloud of smoke and noise caused by firecrackers.

it's not Chinese New Year without dragons

the big blue thing is a fountain that shoots up when the
next fighter comes out AND it has visual projection
of that fighter on it. Best technology I've seen in
Thailand so far.

This past weekend was a long weekend, and even though I am usually itching to get out of Ayutthaya on a long weekend, I am saving my money and my traveling for my big upcoming trip. My weekend was filled with the expected lazing around, hanging out with friends, sleeping late, and watching movies, but I was not planning on seeing world-class Muay Thai boxing for free.
On my run Saturday morning I noticed a giant stage with a amssive screen set up just behind Wat Mahatat in the ruin park. But the setup was not only confined to the ruin park, along the edges street vendors were setting up, pickups were blasting advertisements through speakers as they drove around the City with the only recognizable words being "THAI FIGHT," and even "Thai Fight" signs that pointed to the ruin park. 

The stage setup. You can see the ruins in the background.

My friends and I decided to check it out and possibly watch from outside, since we were unsure whether or not you had to buy tickets. Upon arrival we were pleased to discover that it was for free and we were able to get fairly good views. I'm no Muay Thai expert, and the only other Muay Thai fight I saw was by amateurs on the King's birthday, but this was some good Thai fighting and very interesting to watch. I don't know if you'll be catching me spending much money to go to another fight, but it's definitely a Thai experience that I needed to have and am glad I enjoyed!