your also not gunna believe this...

I forgot to mention that on the day of the arrival of my parents, I had another strange occurance in the sois (walkways/alleys), next to the khlong (canal) around where I live. You may remember that the last occurance was a swarm of bats--fun. This time I have witnesses to an even crazy-er event.

So, Laura, Tyler, and I are walking through the sois. Its dark, and I see something in the canal out of the corner of my eye. I look, fall silent, and stop Tyler and Laura. Yes, in the canal, is a 6-foot+ snake.


I know what you're going to say about this drawing... Yes, the water is FAR TOO CLEAR to be in any khlong, and yes I omitted the heaps of trash floating down the canal. But other than that, its pretty much 100% accurate in my memory. Now, because the water was so filthy, we couldn't see how long the body of the beast extended into the water, but I place the snake's length at a conservative estimate of infinity-feet.

I suspect it was either a Burmese or reticulated python, both of which I have heard of inhabiting urban areas in Bangkok. We alerted the local Thais living nearby (strangely enough, one of the phrases I know in Thai is "big snake!" ... I really didn't think that one would come in handy, but here we are). They didn't seem too impressed by it, and probably caught it and ate it for supper as far as we know.

Then we went on with our day, in awe of ever-interesting Thailand.

youre not gunna believe this...

This post has been a long time coming. A few weeks ago, I was checking my (highly recommended) Google Analytics account and noticed I had a rise in hits coming from search engines. Now, this blog is primarily for friends and family to check-up on me while I'm in Thailand, so I was a little surprised to see that anyone using a search engine bothered to drop by. I waited a few days and the trend continued so I searched for "muay thai practice" myself (my #1 returning search string) and... what occurred next was like something out of a movie...

I was on the first page of results from Google.

I thought to myself "I have arrived." I couldn't believe it, and it still is a mystery why I am there. Even more amazingly, I'm still there! Go and check--its awesome! Just my "everyday blog" from one muay thai practice! I guess I should probably edit the post and put that video of Brian in there, I have a feeling people are not too impressed with the still pictures of me hitting the bag and the the paragraph that accompanies them. Nevertheless, I'm still excited about my "success."

Even more amazingly (yes thats the second time I've used that phrase this post), my page comes up before the WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE FOR MUAY THAI! I rank above my beloved Wikipedia!!!


A new strange trend has also emerged... now "ryan t. alley" ranks second on keywords returned from search engines for my site. Hopefully there isn't an infamous "Ryan T. Alley" rising in the media...

Okay, thats all for my elation.