My Motorbike and Me

(To fellow Teach in Thailand travelers -- Get a motorbike.)

Times are swell with my new Best Friend Forever. I laugh and he sputters; I tell him jokes and he tells me he has gas; I two stroke and he four strokes. I could not ask for a better travel companion--much better than that thinks-my-jokes-are-lame Rahul. My BFF and I go everywhere together. Just today we went out onto the Thai countryside, skipping along the rice paddies hand in handle, and enjoyed a pleasant sunset snack. Last week he took me to dinner where we relished the chance to drink high octane beverages outside the school grounds. Good thing he was the designated driver.


Yesterday we returned from our first weekend getaway. Danielle (from the Teach in Thailand program), he, and I traveled near to the Laos border and visited Phuchifah, a mountain on Thailand's East border. The three of us purred at the sight of it and thoroughly enjoyed our stay at a mountain chalet. We awoke early in the morning on Sunday to climb Phuchifah and joined a procession of hundreds of Thais in the pitch black. Our reason: to watch the sun rise over the mountains of Laos which sit in a bed of clouds.

Do it if you have the chance.


But as you know, three's a crowd, and I had to choke him a time or two in order to get through some of the rough starts. I found out later the reason for the rough starts. The spark of the motorbike's and my initial relationship was fading, but it was easily rekindled with a new spark plug. Trouble again surfaced, however, when a tire (the rear one) blew out in the road. It was a bit scary as the bike fishtailed under us as we careened down the road, but I somehow managed to maneuver the bike without falling/crashing until we reached zero velocity. And with the readily available Thai motorbike mechanics, we were back on the road again in 20 minutes, tired again (although Danielle and I were quite awake from the adrenaline).


Okay, okay, okay. I think I am trying a bit too hard with these puns and I am losing focus of the point of this post. So I will put on the brakes. (...Ehem.) Let me shift gears. (...Ugh.) The point is this: I am revved about my bike and the freedom I now have. In my moment of frustration with the school, when my gears were ground the most, the bike came through in the clutch and set me free of all anguish.