Ridin' Dirty

When Emily and I first received our placement in Thailand we were told that along with housing we would be given both bicycles and a motorbike. We assumed that there was some sort of translation problem and there was no way they would actually be providing us with anything motorized. When we met Sutham, our director, at our orientation in Bangkok he told us we would in fact be lent his old motorbike (called a “motorcyke” in Thailand). When we told him that we had be warned by our program that we are not insured for motorbike accidents and should not ride them while in Thailand, he told us we didn’t really have a choice if we ever wanted to get anywhere on our own. We didn’t want to be prisoners in our Jungle House so we agreed to take the risk (please refer to old post by “Miss Independent” aka Emily).

The entire first week the other teachers kept asking us “Did you learn to ride the motorbike yet?” We didn’t know how they thought we were magically going to learn if none of them were willing to teach us but we would just laugh and say “No, not yet!”. Then, Lun told us that at the end of the week her nephew Dart (in an old post I thought his name was Dat, well I was wrong…this occurs often regarding any and all Thai words/pronunciations) would come over and teach us. The end of the week came and went and we realized that 19 year old college boys have better things to do than teach adult farang (quiz time: do you remember what this means from previous posts?...didn’t think so, it means foreigner!) to ride motorbikes that the Thai master riding as young children, even though it is not legal for them to drive them until age 15. But finally on Sunday Lun brought her 15 year old niece Dream (again, she was referred to as Din in a previous post, but honestly, they do not say “Dream” when they pronounce her name!) over to teach us. Yes, it is a little embarrassing to have someone that many years our junior teaching us, if you were wondering.

There are a few things you need to know about the motorbike. First, a motorbike is NOT a motorcycle. It is smaller and goes much slower, maybe 40 or 50 at its fastest, similar to a moped. Our motorbike is quite large as motorbikes go though, as it used to be ridden by our male director. Therefore, it is very heavy and takes a lot of effort to hold up or move. It is also very hard to start and requires you to throw all of your body weight into pushing the starter pedal (at first it took us about 15 tries to start it, which was extremely embarrassing when in public, but Emily seems to have the hang of it and we are down to about 2-3 tries these days). Lastly, it is extremely noisy due to its old age, and many people have told us they can “always hear us coming”…oh, great!

Dream held her motorbike lessons on a big field at the school. We were pretty fast learners, as we picked up the gear changing, turning, and stopping rather easily. Although honestly, since neither Lun nor Dream are fluent enough in English to know every word necessary for giving driving lessons, I’m not sure I really know what I'm doing. For example, I randomly change gears as I please, not understanding precisely how you decide when it is time (both Emily and I drive automatic cars). Emily practiced on Lun’s bike (which looks like a joke next to ours because it is so much smaller, it is the green one in the pictures) while I used ours (the red one). Lun is very overprotective of us and assumes we will crash and die at any moment so she made us drive in circles over and over and over, even though being on an open field wasn’t great practice for being on a Thai highway with other, much larger, vehicles (and on the left side of the road, too). She kept saying things like “Ohhhhh, maybe you should go slooower!” and anytime I stopped because I had had enough of practicing she would say “Ohhhh, maybe you should keep going!” Meanwhile, Dream laughed at us as our motorbikes jumped and jolted forward every time we changed gears. Finally, we had to tell Lun that we had had enough and were ready to hit the real roads! She started to panic (which she probably should have considering the only road outside the school happens to be a highway), but one more lap around the field and we were going to die of boredom. Emily jumped on the back of my motorbike (very brave move) and we made the super-long 2 mile journey to “downtown” Hang Chat.

In Thailand, motorbikes are driven all the way to the left side of the road, sometimes even on the shoulder if they are too slow (so obviously Lun had us driving here), so that cars can easily pass. We made it safely, with Lun looking back at us every 2 seconds to make sure we were still behind her.

It is now over a week later and we are basically experts…or so we like to think. So far I am the only one who has driven the motorbike out of the school’s property. Emily is capable but not confident enough to take it to the real roads yet. This is ok though, because I like driving and Emily is the pro engine starter…we make such a great team! We have still only gotten as far as downtown Hang Chat, so nothing over 3 miles, and it was just this weekend that we were granted the privilege of leaving our house via motorbike without a chaperone (Lun had been driving her motorbike from her house to ours and then driving ahead of us, even though her house is right in center of the downtown area, which is always our destination). Hopefully in the coming weeks we will start adding some distance trips, like going into the closest city of Lampang, which is about 20 minutes by car, so probably 30 or more by motorbike.

Please enjoy the video footage I captured of Emily’s first go on the motorbike.