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This story opens up on Koh Phangan at Ao Thong Nai Paan.
We had arrived the day before during a monsoon. Due to the Full Moon Party, the only accomodations available were these little out-house shacks at Ao Thong Nai Paan. So we got a Song Thaew (a pickup truck that is used like a taxi) to take us out there. You sit in the bed of the truck on benches that go flush against the side of the truck. So a slight turn and, if you aren't holding on, you're airborne. Getting there involved going across the island's narrow and steep red clay roads. These roads had turned into rivers of mud due to the downpour. They were also single lane, with quite a lot of traffic coming the other direction. And given there were cliffs and whatnot, this involved some pretty creative driving and dodging to get us there.
The Song Thaew driver, being a nice guy, grabbed a tarp for us to hold over our heads (we were with two sisters we met on Koh Tao). So the 4 of us had to decide whether to hold the tarp over us (and protect our possessions from being soaked through) or to hold on to the benches to keep from being thrown backwards out of the Song Thaew by the sharp turns and bumps. We elected to use the tarp and if anyone looked like they were starting to lean out, you'd reach over and grab them. We went speeding through the single lane mud "roads" that had pot holes and trenches that you could drown a horse in, laughing like maniacs. At one point we hit a particularly nasty bump and I turned to Jovon and, with a sardonic grin, said "I told you I wasn't going to survive this trip..."
But I did survive it, and we arrived unscathed at Ao Thong Nai Pan. The "Sandee bungalows" were something to behold. They were wooden shacks with corrugated steel roofs. Well, that doesn't accurately describe it. The slats of the wood had 1-2 inch gaps between them, allowing free passage to all but the largest of spiders. Inside was a full sized mattress with a 1 foot clearance on all sides. I suspect they built the shacks around the mattress.
We were given a mosquito net, which was kind of them, but they had massive holes in them. We're talking holes that allowed Jovon and I to stick our heads out of them. They were only effective to repel giant mosquitos that belonged in King Kong. What was worse was that Jovon and I had to share the damn bed. Why, you ask? Well the girls we were travelling with were pissy about our accomodations and we were left bunking together on this tiny bed.
Now let me tell you about how I lost my fear of spiders. As many of you know, I was deathly afraid of spiders for most of my life. I wasn't even able to be in the same room as them. Now they can crawl on me and it doesn't really bother me. What caused this momentous change? The bathroom at Sandee Bungalows.
I needed the bathroom something fierce, took my key and headed into the out-house. Yes, it had an out-house. I unlock the padlock and open the door. There is a single dirty 50 watt bulb that casts the scene in a moldy yellow hue. What I saw was surreal.
The bathroom consisted of a dirt floor, a hole dug into that dirt floor, and a hose (for showering, washing, flushing, and acting as a rudimentary bidet... it was an all purpose hose). That's it. Now that would have been no big deal if it wasn't for the additional "feature" of this out-house. The army of spiders guarding the bathroom. These things are as big as your fist and have a real menacing aire about them. There was on very large one, in particular, that was hanging out over the hole.
He looked at me as if to say "What are you gonna do about it, asshole? Now bring me a newspaper, I'm going to be here a while."
This was just NOT going to do. I needed to go, and no fuzzy fanged arachnid was going to stop me. So I swallowed my fear, and bared my pale blue (I'm welsh, we're not white) ass to his drippy fangs and did what I needed to do. The spider, wisely, decided that he really didn't need to stick around for this. *poof* No fear of spiders. However, this wasn't something I really wanted to repeat again. I'm pretty sure this spider spend his days hunting small dogs, after all, and I just didn't want to tangle with him again.
The next morning we decided to find new accomodations, and found a decent place. It was more expensive than the $0.25 a night we were spending at Sandee, but it was worth it. The downside was that we needed more money and there was no ATM in Ao Thong Nai Pan.
We realized we would have to go back to Thong Sala (since that is the closest ATM... about 15km). We could pay 100 baht a person to get there and, if we're lucky, find a Song Thaew to take us back for 100 baht. OR! We could rent a motorbike for 250 baht for 24 hours. I say 'motorbike' advisedly because I suspect a lawn mower had more horsepower. It didn't go "ROAAAAAR!" It went "Eeeeeeeee!" Despite that, we opted for option two, being that the roads, while trecherous, were largely empty and also we thought it would be cheaper.
Oh how wrong we were.
It is important to point out that at no point during this story did we wear helmets... they didn't have any to give us.
I was wearing my Che shirt, and little did I know how appropriate it would be. On our little 'La Poderosa III' we took off, nearly crashing several times before leaving the village. It was a scene right out of The Motorcycle Diaries, I'm telling you. Once out of the watchful eyes of the villagers we hit a patch of graven and wiped out. Jovon turned to me and said "Damnit, you leaned the wrong way!" I broke out into hysterical laughter, given the ridiculousness of the statement. I was leaning the same way as he was, after all. So I just laughed. This was to be the theme of the trip. Me laughing and dusting myself off.
I hopped back on (Jo was driving, I was supposed to drive back) and said to Jo "All throughout my childhood I had nightmares of being dumped off the back of motorcycles, do NOT be the guy to make my childhood nightmares come true." Jo shrugged the comment off and set off for Thong Sala.
We were too heavy to effectively use the breaks, so we were forced to stop the bike Fred Flintstone style. Fair play to Jovon, despite the INSANE roads, trenches, cliffs, and various other dangers he got us to Thong Sala without another incident. Feeling brave, we turned and headed to Hat Rin.
To get to Hat Rin you have to go up a really steep road. We were on pavement, rather than mud, however so Jovon was feeling brave. However, we were losing speed on the crazy steep hill and were in second. So what does Jovon do? He shifts to first and guns it, because he was under the impression that our bike didn't have the power to pop a wheelie, despite the illegal grade of the hills.
Jo was wrong.
Jo dumped me off.
We were driving up and one minute I was serenely looking at the ocean (we were near the top of the hill and had a great view) and the next I found myself airborne trying to work out how this sudden change of events occurred.
My reaction, as I flew through the air and tried to arrange it so I would land on my feet was to again burst out into laughter. I'm even laughing as I write this.
Why was I laughing? Because I had cliffs to either side of me and I thought "That son of a bitch made my childhood nightmare come true... I can't believe Jovon killed me." The absurdity of it all just had me cracking up. I had quite a lot of time in the air because of the grade of the road and the force in which he kicked me off the back.
I had enough time to see Jo trying to maintain control of this damn bike as it is doing a wheelie. He crossed in front of traffic, crossed back to our side and nearly fell of a cliff, and then crossed traffic again and went into a ditch.
It was about this time I landed on the ground. I landed on my feet, no joke. I completely lost it. I was literally doubled over laughing. It was one of those laughs that is so intense that it looks like you're crying.
Meanwhile a couple aussies pass us (the guy driving had a leg bandage and the guy riding behind had his arm in a sling) and one says "no worries, mate, that happened to us earlier today."
This was too much for me. All the air left my lungs, my knees went weak, my eyes watered, and I laughed so hard my face and stomach hurt. A super hard, yet silent (because I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe), laugh.
Jo didn't think it was as funny as I did, which is odd because I was the one who was thrown off the bike much like a cowboy off the back of a bull at a rodeo. He did, however, confess that he believed I gave us a "gypsy curse" by telling him about my nightmare. Yes, you heard it here first. The accident was my fault, despite the fact I was a passenger. *laugh*
I discovered that, much like Jesus, Jovon is perfect in all ways. Let me explain this... You might think that he screwed up. You might think that shifting to first and gunning it on a steep hill was his fault. But you would be wrong, Jovon is perfect. It was, in fact, YOUR fault, not his. *laugh*
So we get to the top of the hill and see Hat Rin below us. The pavement on our side of the road ends, however. It's still paved on the other side, but not ours, and for reasons that are beyond me there are big fucking rocks every 6 feet between the two lanes. No worries, we think, we'll just cruise down to the bottom.
Well, there was something to worry about. WAAAAAY down at the bottom was a barricade on our side of the road. Jo shouts "WE NEED TO STOP!" So I put me feet down, as does he. But we're hauling ass at this point and we're on gravel, so it isn't doing shit.
Jo realizes that we're going to have to get on the otherside of the road, but is preoccupied with the fear of catching my feet (or the bike) on one of the rocks, so he forgets a key thing about riding: When hitting bumps you want to do it at a sharp angle, not a shallow one.
We hit the ledge at a shallow angle and dumped the bike going probably around 35mph without helmets. I ended up landing on top of Jovon and we were face to face, my hands underneath him. Immediately, I thought he had hit his head and died. I did the only thing I could think of, which was to use my hands on the pavement (which was still speeding underneath us) to try to lift his upper body off the pavement. Consequently I scarred the shit out of my hands. This description doesn't give you a true picture of what this was like, though.
Essentially, I was surfing Jovon down the street, craddling his upper body with one hand, planting the other hand firmly on the pavement like a skater (sans gloves). It must have been quite a sight. Hehehe.
I rolled off him and Jovon sat up, I was relieved he was alive. And then I saw my hands. I had opera gloves of blood. Jo looked PISSED at me for something (like jesus, remember?) until he saw my hands. "I think I need some stitches, dude." And with that phrase, all anger evaporated.
The bike was broken, however. We couldn't get the fucker started. So Jovon announces that we need to do a push start. So we have Jovon, a football cornerback, and we have me, a scrawny nerd with bloody hands. Who does the pushing? That's right, me. Two big bloody hand prints on the back of that stupid bike, and then I had to run to catch up. Hehehe.
So off in search of a clinic we go.
However, there was a traffic jam. No surprise, it was Full Moon. Ahead of us was a big black pickup truck that threw on its reverse lights. "That's not going to back over us, is it?" "Nah, he sees us."
And then he started coming back at us.
"NOOOOOO!" we screamed, and waved our hands at him, but the bastard ran us over nonetheless. *BANG* I rolled out from under the bike, stood up, and was clearly on the verge of going into shock. So what does the driver do?
He jumps out of his truck, shouted at us in Thai, gets back in his truck, and drives off. No shit.
Licking our new wounds from the Thai hit-and-run, we got the bike started again, and finally made it to the clinic (noting a lot of other people with big bandages down at Hat Rin) and the medic at the clinic just laughed and told us we had Thai Tattoos now. I still have some tendon damage from the whole thing.
All in all our "cheap" option gave us several scars, over 2000 baht of repair bills, 250 baht of rental fees, 100 baht of gas, and 350 baht of hospital fees.
So there you go, that is my experience with motorbikes and Koh Phangan. 4 accidents and due to injuries I drove the fucking thing for about 5 minutes before I realized that I couldn't grip the handles well enough and gave up.
We had arrived the day before during a monsoon. Due to the Full Moon Party, the only accomodations available were these little out-house shacks at Ao Thong Nai Paan. So we got a Song Thaew (a pickup truck that is used like a taxi) to take us out there. You sit in the bed of the truck on benches that go flush against the side of the truck. So a slight turn and, if you aren't holding on, you're airborne. Getting there involved going across the island's narrow and steep red clay roads. These roads had turned into rivers of mud due to the downpour. They were also single lane, with quite a lot of traffic coming the other direction. And given there were cliffs and whatnot, this involved some pretty creative driving and dodging to get us there.
The Song Thaew driver, being a nice guy, grabbed a tarp for us to hold over our heads (we were with two sisters we met on Koh Tao). So the 4 of us had to decide whether to hold the tarp over us (and protect our possessions from being soaked through) or to hold on to the benches to keep from being thrown backwards out of the Song Thaew by the sharp turns and bumps. We elected to use the tarp and if anyone looked like they were starting to lean out, you'd reach over and grab them. We went speeding through the single lane mud "roads" that had pot holes and trenches that you could drown a horse in, laughing like maniacs. At one point we hit a particularly nasty bump and I turned to Jovon and, with a sardonic grin, said "I told you I wasn't going to survive this trip..."
But I did survive it, and we arrived unscathed at Ao Thong Nai Pan. The "Sandee bungalows" were something to behold. They were wooden shacks with corrugated steel roofs. Well, that doesn't accurately describe it. The slats of the wood had 1-2 inch gaps between them, allowing free passage to all but the largest of spiders. Inside was a full sized mattress with a 1 foot clearance on all sides. I suspect they built the shacks around the mattress.
We were given a mosquito net, which was kind of them, but they had massive holes in them. We're talking holes that allowed Jovon and I to stick our heads out of them. They were only effective to repel giant mosquitos that belonged in King Kong. What was worse was that Jovon and I had to share the damn bed. Why, you ask? Well the girls we were travelling with were pissy about our accomodations and we were left bunking together on this tiny bed.
Now let me tell you about how I lost my fear of spiders. As many of you know, I was deathly afraid of spiders for most of my life. I wasn't even able to be in the same room as them. Now they can crawl on me and it doesn't really bother me. What caused this momentous change? The bathroom at Sandee Bungalows.
I needed the bathroom something fierce, took my key and headed into the out-house. Yes, it had an out-house. I unlock the padlock and open the door. There is a single dirty 50 watt bulb that casts the scene in a moldy yellow hue. What I saw was surreal.
The bathroom consisted of a dirt floor, a hole dug into that dirt floor, and a hose (for showering, washing, flushing, and acting as a rudimentary bidet... it was an all purpose hose). That's it. Now that would have been no big deal if it wasn't for the additional "feature" of this out-house. The army of spiders guarding the bathroom. These things are as big as your fist and have a real menacing aire about them. There was on very large one, in particular, that was hanging out over the hole.
He looked at me as if to say "What are you gonna do about it, asshole? Now bring me a newspaper, I'm going to be here a while."
This was just NOT going to do. I needed to go, and no fuzzy fanged arachnid was going to stop me. So I swallowed my fear, and bared my pale blue (I'm welsh, we're not white) ass to his drippy fangs and did what I needed to do. The spider, wisely, decided that he really didn't need to stick around for this. *poof* No fear of spiders. However, this wasn't something I really wanted to repeat again. I'm pretty sure this spider spend his days hunting small dogs, after all, and I just didn't want to tangle with him again.
The next morning we decided to find new accomodations, and found a decent place. It was more expensive than the $0.25 a night we were spending at Sandee, but it was worth it. The downside was that we needed more money and there was no ATM in Ao Thong Nai Pan.
We realized we would have to go back to Thong Sala (since that is the closest ATM... about 15km). We could pay 100 baht a person to get there and, if we're lucky, find a Song Thaew to take us back for 100 baht. OR! We could rent a motorbike for 250 baht for 24 hours. I say 'motorbike' advisedly because I suspect a lawn mower had more horsepower. It didn't go "ROAAAAAR!" It went "Eeeeeeeee!" Despite that, we opted for option two, being that the roads, while trecherous, were largely empty and also we thought it would be cheaper.
Oh how wrong we were.
It is important to point out that at no point during this story did we wear helmets... they didn't have any to give us.
I was wearing my Che shirt, and little did I know how appropriate it would be. On our little 'La Poderosa III' we took off, nearly crashing several times before leaving the village. It was a scene right out of The Motorcycle Diaries, I'm telling you. Once out of the watchful eyes of the villagers we hit a patch of graven and wiped out. Jovon turned to me and said "Damnit, you leaned the wrong way!" I broke out into hysterical laughter, given the ridiculousness of the statement. I was leaning the same way as he was, after all. So I just laughed. This was to be the theme of the trip. Me laughing and dusting myself off.
I hopped back on (Jo was driving, I was supposed to drive back) and said to Jo "All throughout my childhood I had nightmares of being dumped off the back of motorcycles, do NOT be the guy to make my childhood nightmares come true." Jo shrugged the comment off and set off for Thong Sala.
We were too heavy to effectively use the breaks, so we were forced to stop the bike Fred Flintstone style. Fair play to Jovon, despite the INSANE roads, trenches, cliffs, and various other dangers he got us to Thong Sala without another incident. Feeling brave, we turned and headed to Hat Rin.
To get to Hat Rin you have to go up a really steep road. We were on pavement, rather than mud, however so Jovon was feeling brave. However, we were losing speed on the crazy steep hill and were in second. So what does Jovon do? He shifts to first and guns it, because he was under the impression that our bike didn't have the power to pop a wheelie, despite the illegal grade of the hills.
Jo was wrong.
Jo dumped me off.
We were driving up and one minute I was serenely looking at the ocean (we were near the top of the hill and had a great view) and the next I found myself airborne trying to work out how this sudden change of events occurred.
My reaction, as I flew through the air and tried to arrange it so I would land on my feet was to again burst out into laughter. I'm even laughing as I write this.
Why was I laughing? Because I had cliffs to either side of me and I thought "That son of a bitch made my childhood nightmare come true... I can't believe Jovon killed me." The absurdity of it all just had me cracking up. I had quite a lot of time in the air because of the grade of the road and the force in which he kicked me off the back.
I had enough time to see Jo trying to maintain control of this damn bike as it is doing a wheelie. He crossed in front of traffic, crossed back to our side and nearly fell of a cliff, and then crossed traffic again and went into a ditch.
It was about this time I landed on the ground. I landed on my feet, no joke. I completely lost it. I was literally doubled over laughing. It was one of those laughs that is so intense that it looks like you're crying.
Meanwhile a couple aussies pass us (the guy driving had a leg bandage and the guy riding behind had his arm in a sling) and one says "no worries, mate, that happened to us earlier today."
This was too much for me. All the air left my lungs, my knees went weak, my eyes watered, and I laughed so hard my face and stomach hurt. A super hard, yet silent (because I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe), laugh.
Jo didn't think it was as funny as I did, which is odd because I was the one who was thrown off the bike much like a cowboy off the back of a bull at a rodeo. He did, however, confess that he believed I gave us a "gypsy curse" by telling him about my nightmare. Yes, you heard it here first. The accident was my fault, despite the fact I was a passenger. *laugh*
I discovered that, much like Jesus, Jovon is perfect in all ways. Let me explain this... You might think that he screwed up. You might think that shifting to first and gunning it on a steep hill was his fault. But you would be wrong, Jovon is perfect. It was, in fact, YOUR fault, not his. *laugh*
So we get to the top of the hill and see Hat Rin below us. The pavement on our side of the road ends, however. It's still paved on the other side, but not ours, and for reasons that are beyond me there are big fucking rocks every 6 feet between the two lanes. No worries, we think, we'll just cruise down to the bottom.
Well, there was something to worry about. WAAAAAY down at the bottom was a barricade on our side of the road. Jo shouts "WE NEED TO STOP!" So I put me feet down, as does he. But we're hauling ass at this point and we're on gravel, so it isn't doing shit.
Jo realizes that we're going to have to get on the otherside of the road, but is preoccupied with the fear of catching my feet (or the bike) on one of the rocks, so he forgets a key thing about riding: When hitting bumps you want to do it at a sharp angle, not a shallow one.
We hit the ledge at a shallow angle and dumped the bike going probably around 35mph without helmets. I ended up landing on top of Jovon and we were face to face, my hands underneath him. Immediately, I thought he had hit his head and died. I did the only thing I could think of, which was to use my hands on the pavement (which was still speeding underneath us) to try to lift his upper body off the pavement. Consequently I scarred the shit out of my hands. This description doesn't give you a true picture of what this was like, though.
Essentially, I was surfing Jovon down the street, craddling his upper body with one hand, planting the other hand firmly on the pavement like a skater (sans gloves). It must have been quite a sight. Hehehe.
I rolled off him and Jovon sat up, I was relieved he was alive. And then I saw my hands. I had opera gloves of blood. Jo looked PISSED at me for something (like jesus, remember?) until he saw my hands. "I think I need some stitches, dude." And with that phrase, all anger evaporated.
The bike was broken, however. We couldn't get the fucker started. So Jovon announces that we need to do a push start. So we have Jovon, a football cornerback, and we have me, a scrawny nerd with bloody hands. Who does the pushing? That's right, me. Two big bloody hand prints on the back of that stupid bike, and then I had to run to catch up. Hehehe.
So off in search of a clinic we go.
However, there was a traffic jam. No surprise, it was Full Moon. Ahead of us was a big black pickup truck that threw on its reverse lights. "That's not going to back over us, is it?" "Nah, he sees us."
And then he started coming back at us.
"NOOOOOO!" we screamed, and waved our hands at him, but the bastard ran us over nonetheless. *BANG* I rolled out from under the bike, stood up, and was clearly on the verge of going into shock. So what does the driver do?
He jumps out of his truck, shouted at us in Thai, gets back in his truck, and drives off. No shit.
Licking our new wounds from the Thai hit-and-run, we got the bike started again, and finally made it to the clinic (noting a lot of other people with big bandages down at Hat Rin) and the medic at the clinic just laughed and told us we had Thai Tattoos now. I still have some tendon damage from the whole thing.
All in all our "cheap" option gave us several scars, over 2000 baht of repair bills, 250 baht of rental fees, 100 baht of gas, and 350 baht of hospital fees.
So there you go, that is my experience with motorbikes and Koh Phangan. 4 accidents and due to injuries I drove the fucking thing for about 5 minutes before I realized that I couldn't grip the handles well enough and gave up.
