Reflections on the Road: Airborne in Thailand

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

THE SETTING

Most of my 34-year-old peers are married with children.  They live in homes and, with few exceptions, have jobs for which they get paid.  They have health insurance, televisions, and furniture.  They have made babies, some of which are now even in high school.

 

I am not like my peers, at least not when measured by the standards above.  I am single, have never owned a television, have never bought furniture, have never produced a child.  In addition, while I may have had the highest SAT score in my high school graduating class - way back in 1991 - it has been four years since I've made more than $4,000 in a year.  This latter statistic may explain not only why I don't own a television or buy furniture but also, at least in part, why I'm still single.

 

Why am I disclosing this bit of personal information, particularly in a travel column?  So that you, the reader, will better understand what goes through the mind of a budget traveler as he is flying headfirst from a motorbike into the Thai jungle.  In those airborne moments while the body is preparing for impact, the mind is doing something else: number crunching.

 

Unlike many Asians, who can haul as much on a motorbike as an American can in a Suburban, I was not raised learning to handle a motorbike.  But, after safely accumulating well over 1,000 motorbike miles in my several visits to Southeast Asia, I feel comfortable driving one.  I've driven them in Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, and Cambodia, both in cities and countrysides.  I've gone through monsoon rains and heavy winds, over steep mountains and between careening trucks.

 

But only this past month did I attempt the infamous road to Thong Nai Pan, located on a pretty island in the Gulf of Thailand called Ko Phangan.

 

Before I steer this story to the event which occurred on the road to Thong Nai Pan last month, I should mention one more thing.  In Thailand there is a thing called the "Ko Phangan tattoo."  While I've not seen statistics on this, it is likely that Ko Phangan is home to the greatest number of motorbike crashes per capita in Thailand.  Hence the Ko Phangan tattoo.  This is the nickname given to scars one bears after crashing his or her bike on the island.  Walk into a Ko Phangan clinic at almost any hour of the day and you will find people in the lobby, bearing new tattoos.  You may even find a visitor explaining to you, "I used to be beautiful once."  (This sentence was uttered to me by a young Israeli woman whose outer right leg, from ankle to hip, had four days earlier been violently sheered of its skin.  She was at the clinic for her daily bandage change, a spectacle which, the clinic having but one room, I witnessed with much sympathy.)

 

 

 Pausing for a photo while on a good stretch of the Thong Nai Pan Road

 

 

THE EVENT

One morning in pursuit of photographs, I meandered from my bungalow down to a nearby motorbike shop and, after handing over my passport and the equivalent of five dollars, had myself a bike.  The contract was for 24 hours, and the first day went well and so is not worth recounting, except to say that I wasn't happy with the bald front tire and the lackluster brakes, which required almost twice as much road to stop as the previous bike I had rented weeks earlier.

 

The next morning, in order to get my full five-dollars' worth before I had to return the bike at 11:00 a.m, I got up early and, having brushed my teeth and grabbed a map that showed the route to Thong Nai Pan, climbed aboard the bike.

 

Having researched this road, I felt some stress as I began my journey.  Not only did it possess 20 percent grades, but this winding stretch of dirt has been deeply scarred by monsoon rains, transforming it into an obstacle course of deep ruts in which a bike could easily get caught.  I assume this is why the manager of my guesthouse, the woman who rented me the bike, the lady at the massage shop, and a local hair stylist all told me the same thing: don't take the road to Thong Nai Pan.

 

The first ten miles of the journey went alright, but two miles shy of my destination it came to pass that my bike, on account of a passing four-wheel drive truck and in conjunction with lame brakes and a bald tire, slid into a rut while descending a 20 percent grade.

 

From the rut, vaguely comparable to the Grand Canyon, I took stock of my delicate situation.  I knew I couldn't get off the bike and pull it out since the road was too steep and the bike too heavy - if I pulled the vehicle out of the rut, gravity would strip it from my hands and the bike would proceed down the hill without its driver, which would cost the driver a lot of money.  So like a man playing a serious game of billiards, I studied for several minutes the various angles at which I could try to direct the bike.   The final decision: I would slide the bike down the rut about 20 feet and then, from this new position, give the bike just enough power to pull it back onto a drivable portion of road.

 

Having arrived at the desired section of rut, I tried several times to pull out.  I was giving the bike too little power though.  So with some trepidation, I notched it up a hair.

 

What happened next is best described in aeronautical terms.  Ponder the word LAUNCH for a moment.  Soaring over the good portion of road I had intended to alight upon, clearly en route for the adjacent jungle, I took note that I had given my rental bike too much power.  I also took note that my eyes had considerably widened, and that something inside me was cursing.  And at some point I took in the fact that I was no longer atop my bike but rather slightly above it, and that the color green was rushing toward my face.

 

My time in the air was brief.  But even before I landed I had begun the calculations.  Before renting a bike on Ko Phangan, one signs a document stating that he has read how much each part of the bike will cost if damaged under his watch.  He need ding only a few parts of the rented contraption before his budget is broken, and I suspect this is why, in those final moments before landing in the jungle, I had turned my attention to financial calculations.

 

A very short moment later, I took note that my right foot was unnaturally wedged between the bike and a tree, and that there was some blood on my leg.  But it was to the bike I gave my focus.  It had plowed through the undergrowth and had a sapling rammed through the front tire.  It was scratched in places, and shrubbery had gauged out some plastic on the tire guard.  The road to Thong Nai Pan, I concluded with gritted teeth, would not be cheap.

 

Just as I had taken note of several things in the preceding seconds, a local man and his wife, passing by on a motorbike of their own, took note that a foreigner had belly flopped into the jungle (a sight I expect they had seen before).  Unable to stop on the steep incline, they continued on their way.  But two minutes later the man appeared on foot, a large Buddha amulet around his neck and compassion in his eyes.  Together and in silence, we ripped the bike free of the jungle and pulled it back to the road.  Still in silence, he climbed atop the bike and coasted it down to the bottom of the hill, me trailing behind on foot.  From here, with a sprained foot that would get considerably worse by afternoon, I continued on to Thong Nai Pan to take my photographs.

 

 

 In Thong Nai Pan, perhaps knowing some travelers will have arrived rattled from a motorbike mishap, signs nailed to palms offer yoga and meditation courses.

 

Yes, the morning had taken a financial turn I hadn't intended.  Back at the rental shop, the bike's owner suggested I pay $200 for the damage.  Through some negotiations - which included my suggestion that I would not have slid into the rut in the first place had she equipped her bike with decent brakes and tires that didn't look like Kojak - the price dropped to $30.  An hour later at the doctor's office I would pay another $30 for a nurse to rub Tiger Balm on my foot and then wrap it with a two-dollar bandage.  Then I would return to my five-dollar hut to rest in a four-dollar hammock while eating a sixty-cent Snickers.

 

And in the hours I would spend in the hammock, while staring at the sea with my foot propped up, I would think that one day soon, so long as there are roads to places like Thong Nai Pan, bodies that are fragile, and days that don't always turn out as we hope, I will eventually need to start making more than $4,000 in a year.

 

Maybe one day.  In the meantime, I would simply rest my foot and try to enjoy the view.

 

My foot, propped up in the hammock (though this photo was taken a couple days before it was injured)

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		Joel Carillet, Gather Travel Correspondent
	Joel's column, "Reflections on the Road," is published every other Thursday to Gather Essentials: Travel. His articles, based on extensive travels in Asia and the Middle East, seek to shed light on humanity, both our own and that of others.   They aim not merely to entertain and inform but also to develop a sense of connection between the reader and the world. Joel's writing and photography have appeared in several magazines and newspapers, including the Kansas City Star and Christian Science Monitor.  Currently he is seeking an agent for a book manuscript entitled Sixty-One Weeks: A Journey across Asia. When not on the road, he happily calls Tennessee home. Keep up with Joel's article series by joining his network, or subscribing to his content.