Email to Family

Wrote this email about a week ago to my parents / sister and decided it would make a good blog post...

Hey there everyone, sorry I haven't called lately. I am 11-12 hours ahead in time zone and the internet cafe's here open late and close early so it's really hard to get a call through when anyone would be awake. We are leaving northern thailand and heading all the way back south to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia tomorrow or the next day. To help you with what that actually means, please take a look at this link: Google Maps: Chiang Mai to Kuala Lumpur Its a long ride back - about two days by bus. Its a good thing the buses here are ridiculously nice and put our american greyhounds to shame. The public transit in general here seems mostly ahead of the united states. If we just took a fraction of the money we spend in foreign wars and put it into public transit we would probably all have personal hovercrafts with robot chauffeurs instead being outdone by tiny southeast asian countries. Maybe its because they have more asian drivers here, so they want everyone on public transit....eh eh eh jokes!

We just completed a 4 day motorbike ride through the hills. It was pretty nice except that its slash and burn season meaning a large portion of the countryside was literally on fire. (slash and burn=burning last years crop to clear it out for the spring season and return some of the nutrients to the soil). The sky was smoky for hundreds of miles and at many points the sides of the road were blazing high with flames and cows eating ashes or something else they seem to have found delicious. The views could have been a little less post-apocalyptic. You ever see that movie "The Road"? It was kinda like that except no one was eating babies.

I was riding a rather seasoned motorbike. It had a lot of character. On day one the rear tire blew out on me and I found out the whole rear rim was missing 8 spokes. One of these broken spokes jammed itself through the rim and into the tire, puncturing it. Fixing it was quite easy though. Stopped at a roadside shack where an old man fixed the tire and then we stopped again just down road from the old man where a retarded guy replaced my spokes. He was not full on retarded, but was unable to speak and made up for it by gesturing about and making loud mumbling noises. This gave me a glimpse of what we must look like to the Thai people when waving our arms about speaking incomprehensible English. Fortunately his verbal inabilities did not detract from the special guy's talents at replacing my spokes. He appeared to be an ace mechanic. 3 dollars spent and we continued happily on our way.

On day 3 I crashed the bike in a pothole that a normal motorcycle might have just bumped through. I was not driving a normal motorcycle, so immediately upon hitting this pothole the bike and I parted ways to embark on separate journeys across the expanse of gravel and bumps in the road ahead. Luckily i am very experienced at falling off//into/over things and it appears that the bike had also had also had its fair share of crashes in decades past, so i was able to ride it for another day and a half to successfully complete our trip (yes, mom i was wearing a helmet. it was baby blue).

When we got back chris and i went to a very legit honda service center where the technician gave some unsettling responses while looking at the bike; "Oh no good! Very bad! Motor bad! Alignment bad!". The damage was assessed at 2,700 baht (about 90 bucks) and would take 2 days to repair. This was not an option because our Thai visas expire in 3 days. I risked bringing it back to the rental shop and throwing myself at their mercy. When i got there and handed the keys over, the guy tried to start it, realized it doesn't start, then rolled it into the shop, and just threw down the kickstand appearing satisfied with there being no indication it would ever run again. He then gave our passport back, and said "thank you". Trying my best to be honest as it seemed these people had no idea how much damage i caused, i showed them what happened pointing to the bent shifter, twisted foot peg, and the front tire (which was kind of bent to the right). The entire front of the bike above the tire including the mangled cargo basket was visibly askew pointing off to the left and drooping a bit as if it had motorcycle palsy. The electronics in general were shot after the incident and i had to kick start it and keep gassing it for the engine to remain running. They ignored all of this and with a pipe and hammer started banging/bending things until the whole thing reached a shape somewhat resembling a motorcycle and charged me 200 baht (about 7 dollars). Maybe they have been waiting for someone to run it into the ground and officially total it so they can finally cash in with their insurance company and get a new one to take its place? More likely were distracted by the 8 shiny new spokes on the rear wheel. Either way there was no need to ask any questions. By the time they took my payment, put it in the drawer and looked back up, I was halfway down the street.

Overall, it was a great success! We are back in Chiang Mai and I just had some delicious noodles for a dollar. Life is good. Hopping on a luxury bus tomorrow to begin the long journey back to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to greet the Bott family who arrive on the 16th. I hope i can call sometime soon. By the way, no need to worry about me, i just had a little road scrape on my elbows like when i was a kid and would fall off the bicycle. Flying off of a 2 wheeled machine was instantly recognized as a familiar sensation and i was not hurt. Tuck and roll works best when practiced. Love you/talk to you soon.