Sumo!
It's not everyday you get the chance to see live sumo wrestling. So no choice but to check out the combined world sumo, world women's sumo, world under 18 sumo and asian sumo championships. Three days of fun at the 700 year sports complex just north of Chiang Mai. The complex, incidentally, is not 700 years old but was built in honor of Chiang Mai's 700th birthday in 1996 but hosted the 1995 Southeast Asian games.
Maybe surprisingly, sumo is a very entertaining sport to watch. Games are short, highly energetic and follow in rapid succession. We saw the prize ceremony for the under 18s on Saturday, to make sure we'd know where to go on Sunday, the main day of the event, and arrived early the next day, at around 10am. We ended up staying until six.
Most surprising was the cute Brazilian women's team. One of the three women was seriously overweight, but the other two were really cute: about 1.6m high and under 55kg. And very powerful. One of these two girls was a three times Brazilian sumo champion and a one time judo champion. I wouldn't want to meet here in some dark alley.
But then again, maybe I would.