How to end your Thai vacation with a bang (Don't actually do this.)

My recent trip to Thailand was planned quickly, and until the last 24 hours went off without a hitch. I won't get into much of it aside from the end; there are social networking photos and captions that accomplish that pretty well. Plus, I'd like to avoid glamorizing my trip as if no one else in the world takes vacations to beautiful southeast asian islands.

Let's skip to the final 28 hours - a long story as it is.
Leaving the coastal city of Ao Nang, I take a ferry to Phuket.  I planned to get one of Thailand's cheap and ubiquitously advertised massages, since I was plenty sore from rock-climbing the previous day and biking in the morning, and most places offer them for a steal of 200 baht (~$6). However, after disembarking from the ferry, chaos ensues, with a cluster of about 15 different shuttle drivers to different places (none fixed) and maybe 70 people trying to find with whom they're supposed to get their prepaid ride from the ferry landing to their next destination.  I tell a driver I'm going to the city center and a handsome but dirty-hippie-rock-climber dude from South Africa overhears and says he'll stick with me, since he's also going to the city center.  I smile, and we stand around talking for a little while waiting for the chaos to get sorted out.  After shuttle van roulette, we make it to the city center and wander a bit with our backpacks and matching cliche woven shoulder bags (essential gear for any world-traveler hippie wannabe). DHRC dude asks if I'm hungry and says he knows a good restaurant from his few days in Phuket at the beginning of his 4 week climbing trip. Delicious Thai food and beer are consumed.

DHRC dude and I part after he walks me to the bus terminal where he says I can catch a taxi. We don't exchange contact information, as was the case with everyone I met and whose company I enjoyed in Thailand. So many interesting people, none of whom I'll ever see again.

I begin walking toward the bus terminal and see no taxis, but instead a group of guys sitting around a table outside playing cards. One of them asks me where I'm trying to go, and I tell him the airport.  He asks if I want to go by motorbike and after telling me the time it would take, and cost, I hesitate, but look around and say "uhh...okay. Sure." He hands me a helmet and I get on the bike behind him and hold onto his waist. I'm a little surprised by how smooth the ride feels, and soon we speed up and after a while he begins weaving through traffic. Simultaneously I'm wincing and feeling excitement about the busy traffic and the city speeding past. The following thoughts go through my mind:

1. This is really unsafe.  You read on reddit that the most common way for tourists to get injured or die in Thailand is by riding motorbikes. 2. Yes, but they were talking about tourists who rent them themselves, this guy does this all the time. He probably knows how to maneuver the streets well and safely or he wouldn't be doing this... 3. Maybe I should be holding on to this guy tighter.  This is the absolute worst time for you to let your Minnesotan politeness come through, Rachel.  Yeah... but holding on tighter isn't going to do you much good if we crash anyway. 4. This is pretty cool.  The warm air rushing past, bright lights. I kind of like it, I'm sure we'll be fine. Would I be okay with it if I died right now?  Yeah, I've lived a pretty great life and I'm pretty fantastically fortunate (I actually thought this, as irrational as it might sound). 5. Well, if we might fall I should prepare for that possibility. It's bad if you tense up when you get in an accident, right?  Or maybe the opposite is true. Is it possible to roll like they do in the movies?

This stream of consciousness is interrupted by my driver seeming to realize he was losing control (perhaps due to a pothole, maybe some sand on the road), and make noises of surprise, while we swerve left and then right.  Quickly we're falling and the motorbike slides out from under us on its side. I yelp and when we stop and I stand up and see that I can walk.  Another couple motorbikes stop around us, and ask us if we're okay.  I'm standing there with my mouth open, momentarily speechless.  I check myself out, hardly believing what I had dispassionately mused about happening moments before, had actually happened. I tell them I think I'm okay, and then one of the motorbike drivers who stopped tells me he can take me the rest of the way to the airport. I slowly consent "only if you promise to drive carefully...." and then "please drive slowly?" with a pleading tone in my voice as we get on the bike.

I think of how stupid this decision too could turn out to be, and hope against hope that we can make it safely to the airport 10 more minutes away. This time I gripped the driver tightly, and wince any time we go over rough ground.  I straighten up in case I'm at all off balance, and lean away from the turns. We make it to the airport and the driver having noticed my sharp intakes of breath from time to time, asks me if I'm okay.  I nod, and say I am, so he leaves and I make my way into the airport. Walking through the airport I feel the eyes of everyone around me turn to see this girl in a jumper, with raw dirt covered legs and a bloody knee walking around looking for a sign for the first aid room.

Probably should've worn pants that day

A nurse looks surprised when I walk in and I explain what happened.  She cleans me up asking me if I'm traveling alone and if it's my first time in Thailand.  When I answer both questions with yes, her eyes turn down and she sucks in air in disapproval, but a caring disapproval.  "Ohh, you shouldn't travel alone, it's dangerous for women."  I nod, not really agreeing, and mention something about not taking motorbikes again.  And she looks at me with worry, but we laugh.  After she feeds me some glucose to combat the faintness I felt coming on, she instructs me on how to clean the rest of my leg, which she didn't have enough supplies for. I leave the office and find a place to sit and buy some anti-bacterial wipes; some fellow travelers help me to get some gauze, ointment and tape, and I wrap the rest of my leg.  Nothing hurts yet, but people tell me I'm probably in shock and will be in a lot of pain tomorrow.  I pass the time until my flight with a woman from Amsterdam who helped me cut my wrapping with a plastic food court knife, and we talk of love for biking, the ease of transportation she feels with her bike being the thing she misses most when she's gone from home. Finally the plane is boarding and I talk to a couple next to me who also had a motorbike accident, but which seems to be much worse than mine. They tell me they both had fevers and the woman had to stay in a hospital for a few days, where they saw person after person come in for the same reason.

Figure A

The next 24 hours consist of 3 flights and 10 hours in layovers (7 hours in Bangkok, which ended up being an incredibly inefficient needless leg, given how much closer Phuket and Kuala Lumpur are.  See figure A).  Sleeping off and on in airports and airplanes, rebandaging my makeshift attempt to bandage my upper leg at the Bangkok airport first aid, watching the filming of a movie at midnight, and what felt like the longest 10 minutes of my life on the flight from Kuala Lumpur before landing in Tokyo, just wanting to be home sleeping.

Moral of the story?  I don't really know, but I'd say my risk assessment skills in foreign countries should be a bit more conservative. Sure riding a motorbike isn't the craziest risk to take, and I know people who have done it for years while living in a foreign country. But it's not something I'd do again soon, and perhaps having known the ride would take 40 minutes (a good long time to allow for something to go wrong) and seeing that the driver had been sitting around playing cards, potentially drinking?, should have given me pause enough to find a car taxi. Still, what fun is life without risk? And hey, when things go wrong it only serves to humble me and waken my empathy for those dealing with health issues far more serious than my minor one. And for old people.  Because I now walk slower than all the old Japanese obaasans and ojiisans.

You live and you learn, and I'm doing plenty of learning lately.