Shubert Blog – Thailand Review!

Written by: Staff on 30th December 2011

Shubert Blog - Thailand Review! |

Dear All, sorry for the lack of updates lately, the Christmas holiday coupled with some internet-outages left me quite out of touch… But all is well now and I’ll bring you up to speed on what has been happening lately!

After meeting with Randall at the Asia Tennis Academy of Chiang Mai and playing with the tigers, I took a few days to travel North into the mountains close to the Myanmar border. I stayed in a traditional “Akha” village at Doi Mae Salong. Rooms were about $15 a night so I was very surprised with the low cost of living!! It was very peaceful up there and definitely was a good break from city life. Northern Thailand countryside is some of the most beautiful land I’ve ever seen, I loved every minute driving along the highways and dirt roads up into the mountain top temples and local villages, it was truly special. On our way back to Chiang Mai, we encountered a flat tire just outside of Fang in the middle of nowhere. Luckily it happened right in front of a landscaping shop and as luck would have it (after visiting a “Wednesday” Buddha temple known as Wat Tha Ton) we arrived at closing time when all the women were cleaning up the shop and headed home. Our rental didn’t have a jack.. Uh oh… But I grabbed my mom’s ipad and quickly found a picture of a car jack and through show and tell we managed to borrow one from the manager lady. The nice shop lady then phoned her husband while laying out leaves on the highway to create a makeshift barrier for us from the crazy traffic. The owner/husband came by about fifteen minutes later with whole troop of repairmen! By this time however, we had already managed to use supplies from the shop to replace the flat tire. But what a relief to have the mechanics there as they helped wheel us into the shop where they also happened to have an air compressor to check the tire pressure! This whole incident probably took 45 minutes, I don’t know how we managed to make that time considering where we were located. Also, the shop owner wouldn’t accept any money in return for his and his wife’s help! I must say that the hospitality and compassion of the Thai people is truly admirable and makes me want to visit Chiang Mai again someday.

After that adventure, I visited the Maetang Elephant Camp where I spent an entire day with the elephants, learning how to climb, ride, and bathe them! If you ever get the chance to give a mud bath to an elephant and then rinse off in the nearby river, DO IT. It was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had, so much fun and cleansing for the spirit. My final day in Chiang Mai, I rented a motor bike and somehow braved the local city streets to visit Doi Sutet. I can’t remember much about the temple but I had such a blast riding around on the little 135cc Yamaha motorbike, dangerous as it was. The mountain curves mixed with the waning sun and cool air simply revitalized me and gave me such a rush, like hitting a tweener lob then rushing back to the net for a jumping Sampras-smash off your opponent’s weak reply! What fun and what a great way to end my Chiang Mai visit!

I arrived in Bangkok about 4 days ago, and couldn’t believe the amount of pollution in the air or the teeming city with endless hustle and bustle. I was reminded of New York, Los Angeles, and Singapore all wrapped into one city. My sponsors at Solinco helped connect me with the Solinco and Donnay rep of Bangkok named Sam. He led me to a practice facility known as the TTAA Sports Center (The Tennis Academy of Asia) about 10 miles outside of downtown. There we met with a few players and their coach and had a great 2 days of practice, sharing tennis knowledge, and some video work. I was happy with their response and how talented their players were. They were all sponsored by Solinco and Donnay. Sam let me know that a meeting with Thailand’s #1 Danai Udomchoke was in the works but the timing turned out to be wrong because he was farther south at Youhzny’s training camp before heading down under to Australia! Boy what an opportunity that would be to speak and learn from an experienced Thai player and set up a network possibly that would help me train in this SE Asian area in the future! I suppose there will always be a next time

It definitely feels like I’ve been out of touch with the world this past week, once again I apologize for being out of touch. I haven’t even been able to follow any of the ATP or WTA news! I’ll work on a few emails, get in touch with tennis again and have more updates for you on a daily schedule as long as I’m in Singapore! (But who’s to say I have to stay here in Singapore until my flight back to Honolulu on January 5th?!?) Attached are photos of me with Sam, Solinco, and Donnay at the TTAA Sports Center, how we fixed the flat tire using a short jack and landscaping supplies, and one elephant of a kiss!

Aloha,

Shubert

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