A game of Takraw

Takraw aka Siamese Football and introduced to the Southeast Asian Games by Thailand, is played with a woven rattan ball of about 15 cm. in diameter, is played like volleyball though the hands are taboo in this game, just the feet, chest and head.
Amazing aerial pirouttes can be performed by more experienced players kicking the ball across the net with a certain style known only to the Thai.

A game is in full swing when I arrive at the local police station with young cops dressed in white shorts and sweaty T-shirts - police issued - and my polite request for joining a team is enthusiastically accepted.

I used to play this game nearly every night with Jamie and his mates when I still lived in Bangkok with Nong. Needless to say that Jamie`s mates where young strong bucks from the Thai capital`s seedier neighborhoods, hoodlums involved in shady deals and even shadier businesses that I never bothered inquiring about, young muscular oriental men whose bodies where covered in weird tattoos symbolysing their superstitious nature, a Noordu, protection against bad luck.

They happily accepted me in their midst, just as easily as these young Thai cops allow me to join their game of Takraw. Yet another part of the communal Thai mind I`ve come to admire so much, come to love!!!

My body soon goes into overdrive while I try hard to keep up with these well-trained locals who, I have no doubt, play this game every night, lots of laughter and loads of chemicals releasing themselves inside the gray mass that makes up my Farang braincells, the game gets more spike and the other participants pay me no sacrifice, no rest for the weary.

I make a near complete sommersault scoring a main point for my team and even stronger points for "FACE" with my athletic abilities. I catch the rattan ball with my chest and knee it to a team player while my mind is back on that play ground back in time, back in Bangkok, back to Jamie and his rough friends.

When it is all over I sit around with these young Thai cops and their older colleages drinking Heineken beer straight from the bottle, icy cold to the tough reminding me nothing in the whole wide world can beat the taste of ice-cold beer after a good work-out.

written by  heraclio on May 2, 2009 from Ko Samui, Thailand
from the travel blog: Farang Chronicles.
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