Day 105 - Motorbike Mayhem

Today I woke up feeling great after the best night's sleep I've had in weeks, had an awesome breakfast and rented a motorbike, aiming to head over to Long beach on the other side of the island. As we got to the northern tip, going round a particularly sharp bend, I lost control of my bike, wobbled a bit and fell, sliding along the ground on my knee and elbow with the bike on top of me. Arse. I could see Sally behind me looking shocked, so I gave her a thumbs up as I slid by. The wing mirror snapped off, and I ended up with the bike wedged under the railing, and noone stopped - about 20 cars and bikes drove by, seeing me on the floor, before one guy shouted and asked if I was OK. We headed back into town to find the clinic, but by the time we got there I found out that it wasn't as bad as I thought, so I went to the Pharmacy where the guy told me I had now got a "Koh Chang Kiss", and recommended I go to the garage down the road to fix the wing mirror, as it would be cheaper. He was right, and while we were there the owner's pet monkey took quite a shine to my friends Sally and Lauren, jumping on their heads an picking stuff out of their hair.

Back at the bungalows, having sent the girls off to Bang Bao, I realised Sally had the key to our room, so I had to get back on the bike (which I really wasn't up for) and head down to the stilt village to try and find them - I succeeded, and w ended up having a delicious, if somewhat messy, meal of fried fish, crab and prawns, before riding back and cleaning up my various cuts and bruises - I have an entirely mummified toe, huge plasters on my knee, and a bandaged wrist where I bent it backwards - in case anyone hadn't noticed from the last few weeks, I seem rather accident prone. When we returned the bikes, I thought I was going to get away with it, but the dude checked the bike and ended up charging me 4,500 Baht for the damage - that's 58 quid I wasn't ready to spend.

I'm going to go back to Treehouse and try and get a hammock, using my wounds as a bargaining tool if necessary. Tomorrow I'm doing nothing strenuous or dangerous, just reading my book on the beach and saving money.