"No, No. Only LEFT one is good!"

Confession time... I pulled a Kim-ism so bad I even managed to injure Mars! I think this one needs a new name. In the interest of saving the 'rents undue stress, we waited a few days to post about our brief bike trip...

So, on Koh Samui, there are a lot of neat little things to see, and the island is only 51km around, so we figured "Lets rent a motorbike." They are dirt cheap to rent and we thought it would be a fun afternoon that would save us some taxi $$. So we wander up to this hilarious little Thai dude that is in the "shop" (read: hut) across from our hotel. He gives us a bike for even cheaper than we thought, and we make him go in the back and find us helmets. From the pics I posted earlier, safety on motorbikes isn't really their thing over here! So, with no instruction, ready to drive on the wrong side of the road with insane Thai drivers, Mars hops on the back and we are ready to ride. That is the nice first picture.

Fast forward 100 meters and about 10 seconds.

We are both sprawled out, on top of eachother, in a starfish position. In this ditch.

So I take off on the bike and I give it a bit too much gas off the line. The bike FLIES onto the street and we narrowly avoid a collision with another motorbike... the guy doesn't even flinch... like he's had 2 white girls coming at him wildly on a motorbike many times before! I'm trying with all of my might to yank the right hand brake, as that is the first thing you want to grab when you take your hand off the accelerator on the right side! So we miss the guy on the bike and since our bike won't stop, we plow into this disgusting ditch. In hindsight, it must have looked like THE FUNNIEST scene ever to the guy in the shop. The bike falls on me and we are a pile of limbs everywhere, Mars is in the ditch then up in a flash. The rental guy doesn't even run over.... like he's seen 2 white girls crash his bike many times before. haha!! After the initial shock of the worlds worst 100m on a motorbike, I walk the bike back to the shop and we clean ourselves up under a tap while his wife brings us fresh picked aloe leaves. The dude says "What happened?" I explain what happened. He says "Oh, no, no. Only LEFT brake is good." Oh. My. God. Does he not think I could have used this info BEFORE taking off?? Gotta love language barriers while traveling. I took the bike for another spin alone up the street, but for the first time in my entire life, I just didn't feel comfortable on those crazy roads. So thus ended the bike day and we went to see the Big Buddah by, ironically, motorbike taxi!!

Damage assessment: 800 bhat paint scratch (bike), scraped left shin/knee/calf/ankle (Kim), bruised right knee (Kim), pebble encrusted left knee (Mars), swollen middle finger right hand (Mars), left shoulder scratch (both), chest bruise (both), back bruise (both), right ankle bruise (Mars), left toe knuckle tear (Kim), sore muscles (both), crooked sunglasses (Mars), severely bruised ego (Kim), disturbed mud bed and 4 damaged weeds (ditch).

No worries though, we are all good. Used our various medicines to get all patched up and we are off and running again! Oddly enough, this is the first time we have ever been injured together! Now, re-read those injuries and try to imagine a fall so comical that it would produce all of them at once...