May 19th, 2006 - Motorcycle drama's

We arrived in Kamala Beach in Phuket, at noon on Tuesday and headed straight out on the beach after finding a place to crash. The beach is still in shambles from the Tsunami and efforts are being made to rebuild the waterfront. A memorial construction project was taking up most of the beach front, while the pomtrees were all being supported by stilts after having been replanted very recently. Overall, our first impressions were poor but we stuck it out and made the most of our three days. Phuket is probably only 2 hours from Ao Nang and yet although Ao Nang threatened of rain, thankfully, it never really hit us...In Phuket, it was a different story, lots of rain! The next day we rented a small motorbike and headed around the island. You could pick out the tourists, because they're the only ones wearing helmets and there is maximum 2 people per bike! The locals sometimes squeeze 4 with luggage! No child seats either... We had a lovely morning, passing through the neighboring town of Patong beach and then continuing on into Karon and Kata before rounding the southern tip of the island and coming up to the Promthep point. We stopped and rode an elephant for an hour up a hill above the ocean and a really nice club med resort. I had no idea that their hair was quite so spiky and coarse, nor that they have foreheads big enough for our guide to sit on? The walking was pretty sickening but we should have realized the downhill gets worse, since the guide walked with the elephant on the way back down and had Laure and I take turns sitting directly on the elephants neck...talk about a wedgy! The whole coast was stunning and the rain only caught us once at Promthep, where we grabbed a drink in a restaurant on the ocean front. Ironically, the first time we have Western food it makes us sick and both of us had are first (and hopefully last case) of travellers diahrrea. Technically, I won our bet as to who had the weaker stomach, but hey, whos counting! Next it was around towards Phuket town...what a nightmare, school was letting out and traffic was everywhere. Locals honk to signify passing and since I was the slowest driver on the road, the horns weren't stopping...talk about stressful! We decided to skirt the town and not risk any problems by going into the busy city center, then it was back off to the becaches on the other coast starting with Patong. Unfortunately, after a long ride I burnt Laures leg on the hot muffler when we were parking the bike. We quickly got her sorted at the pharmacy with soothing cream, antibacterial cream and compresses and then pampered her(us) with a Thai massage and a pedicure. With some reserve I managed to get her back on the nike abnd we made the short trip back to Kamala. The next day we we lounged in our room for most of the rainy day after a failed attempt to move on to our next destination, Phuket. Some friend of ours invited us into Patong, so we decided to rent the bike a second day since it's cheaper than getting a taxi 2 ways. I took the bike out for a joy ride to see the Northern beaches while Laure relaxed. On my adventure I drove to the end of a paved road where a herd of cows? At least they resembled cows, except for their horns...kinda like a Thai Zebu for those that have been following Laures blog in Madagascar. Anyways, not quite nowing what to make of them, I decided to do the responsible thing...honk my horn and floor it! No seriously, I pulled over and took pictures, in a very vulnerable position to be charged. Then I off roaded a little to get to a secluded beach before heading back to Kamala. That night we drove into Patong, the bling bling city of huket and regratably missed our friends that we were there to meat in the first place. Instead we had a drink on a rooftop terrace, then dinner in a food court before calling it quits and heading home to Kamala. As a very scenic island, there are mountains everywhere and one just happened to separate Petong from Kamala. It sounds straight out of a movie, but would you believe we ran out of gas near the top of the windy road between the two. At the time I definetly could NOT se the humor, but in hindsight, it was pretty funny. Particularly, when I'm pushing the bike up the remainder of the hill, hell it was a full on mountain, past the small police station post and trying to explain being out of gas for pushing a bike in the dark late at night. We finally got to level ground and the bike finally started. I popped it into neutral and we coasted down the mountain and into town, between my desperation at trying to find a gas station not having to push any more and Laure's whimpering about a bit of excess speed with fear of not having any power we sputtered into a gas station. Gas station is a bit strong of a word. Literally, 2 4 liter clear cylinders resembling syringes and a small pipe with no nozzle, kind of like a titration kit from organic chemistry. He also took the liberty of hamering the footpeg back into place using the back of his shovel as it had got bent from excessive attempts to kick start it, before he was kind enought to get it started for us again...We returned the bike and caught an early morning mini bus across Thailand to the island of Ko Samui