Hog Wild

For a trip to really be considered an adventure, one needs that brief moment of pure abject terror. For me, nothing personified this idea better than the roads of Ko Samet, via motorcycle. I have never ridden a motorcycle before. However, I am an American college age male, which, according to most car insurance companies, qualifies me as a “risk-taker”. No wanting to disappoint, I accepted the challenge. We arrived on the island on Saturday afternoon for a brief overnight stay. Upon landing at the dock, we stopped at the first motorcycle rental place and picked up our sweet sweet rides. Mine was red, with a shiny decal number 22 on the front (nickname: “The Double Deuce”). After giving me the standard “here’s how to make it go” series of gestures, the attendant suggested that I ride to the end of the block and back, to make sure everything was in working order. The breeze was whipping through my buzzcut and I felt the call of the open road, so I leaned forward, adjusted my sunglasses, revved the engine, and…drove about 20 feet at a top speed lower than that of a Fisher Price Power Wheels product.

My old lady like driving aside, I did manage to make it back without falling down or killing anyone. Maybe this could be ok. It seemed like fun. Problem is, Ko Samet is not, shall we say, the most developed of vacation spots, and the 20 feet of road that I had just torn up probably accounted for about eighty percent of the total pavement on the island. Off we went, as I tentatively crept along and tried to avoid falling off my newly acquired hog. Once we hit the mud, though, life certainly became more interesting. You may recall that June is the heart of the monsoon season in Southeast Asia. You may also recall that I am not an especially large person, certainly not one with enough mass to properly weigh down a vehicle that weighs substantially more than I do. These factors combined to make circumstances, well, rather slippery.

I only really wiped out once, but I decided to make it count and land in a puddle. I also did nearly crash into a tree, but managed to activate the brakes at the last second. We drove up and down the whole island, winding through the jungle on our speeder bikes, eventually arriving at the imperial base that controls the deflector shield for the death star so we could deactivate it and Lando could use the Millenium Falcon to destroy the Empire’s ultimate weapon once and for all (at least, that’s what I was doing, I don’t know about the rest of the group).

For as white as my knuckles were whenever we stopped, I think I did a fairly respectable job and remained, for the most part, intact. The same could not be said for Joey, who ate pavement (the other twenty percent) while we were riding back from dinner. He and I were the last two of our little convoy, and between the two of us we couldn’t get his bike to restart. This is how I wound up riding through the jungle, at night, through the mud, in the rain, by myself. Needless to say, the journey probably took me longer than most, since I was concentrating very hard on having my life continue beyond the next five minutes. I survived, though, and so did Joey, though we both agreed that we felt much better once we’d gotten back to the hotel and obtained beer.

Speaking of the accommodations, I’d like to reiterate the lack of development on Ko Samet. Our room reflected this, and I believe in Thai one might refer to such a dwelling as a “sheea twhoal” Despite the Spartan room, we enjoyed the rest of the trip, That said, we did have more fun than anyone else since our room a.) did not smell like a port-a-john and b.) did not have a roof which allowed the weather outside to become the weather inside. The next morning required another motorcycle ride back to the pier. It stands to reason that I’d only manage to really get the hang of it about five minutes before returning it. Go figure.