Sunday, November 24, 2013

Motor biking in Pattaya...by Kit


       
After about 1 week of riding motor bikes in Pattaya I already have a hand full of hilarious stories.
        Story 1: We are about 7 minutes in after we have just rented our bikes and we all have these trashy little helmets they gave us at the rental shop, so we go to run our first errand and it is the very first major street that we pull out on, (literally the first time we give it the full throttle) we are going up about 300 ft. and then we are going to do a U turn. I gun it, get up to about 25mph cut across 4 lanes and let off to slow for the upcoming U turn. Mike pulls up next to me, NO HELMET. Apparently his was to small and it flew off as soon as he hit the throttle. Go back and get it? Not an option on that busy street. I was laughing so hard I didn't know if I would make it to our first stop.
        Story 2: Rafa blew a tire on the way home from dinner and Juli and I stopped to help out, we found a tire repair shop real close by and the lady gestured for us to pull it on in. Rafa attempted to give it a little gas to have the engine help him roll it, well he gave it a little to much and his bike was a run away train and rammed into a shelf with a bunch of glass bottles on it. Fortunately no damage was done and all had a good laugh. I felt a little useless watching a 50 something little Thai lady change a tire for us but she was more than up for the task. When she finished she insisted on rolling it out to the street for us. Well I can't say I blame her!
         Story 3: In an attempt to turn my bike around I miss judged the corner and next thing i know I am in a weed filled field 4 wheeling. Just a few stickers in my service pants to show for that mis hap though.
         Someone mentioned that in Thailand the road is like a stream, the cars are like rocks and the scooters are like water. They are so right, it is just scooters filling every opening. Riding scooters here has been very fun. At first while watching traffic in Bangkok we didn't know if we were up for the task. One night during a big festival we were walking on the side of a 6 lane road with absolute mayhem going on in the street, you see it is a 2 way road but everyone just goes where there is an opening regardless of the direction they are going. As a gang of about 80 scooters buz by 1 guy coming from the opposite direction does a U turn in between all the scooters which are all going about 25 mph, crazy right, well now factor in that he was texting with 1 hand and not even looking up at what he was doing at all, just looking down at his phone!
          It can also be scary. Yesterday on the way to meeting we saw the aftermath of man verses scooter, not pretty. It looked like the guy that got hit would be ok but he was not happy.
          We have been having great success in the ministry which we will share on upcoming posts.




5 comments:

  1. That first story made me laugh so hard! I already forgot that happened!!! And four wheeling in service?? We haven't heard that story yet! Thank goodness for blogging :)

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  2. Oh my goodness! Such gifted writing abilities!! I enjoyed every minute along with my chocolate date shake here :) So, we were all talking about the rashes and chub-rub yesterday in car group [yes we were!!] and we have advice: How's about using some corn starch in the drawers? That comes from Edie P! And we all agree it could help :) Ok, so now that you now your, ahem, problem is being internationally discussed, have a good trip! Love and miss you!!!

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  3. The Mikey helmet story made me laugh - especially because Troup's are known to be unusually large headed people ha ha. Keep up the writing Kit - I know you secretly have been wanting to be a guest blogger for the J girls ages ago ;)

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  4. Jessica, it was Mike Stiles who lost his helmet. Just for future blog reference your bro is Mikey.

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  5. Oh! Derrr. I'm a dork :) Well. Mike looks like he's got a big head too ;)

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