A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad, Rental Bike

Today's post SHOULD have been full of adorable pictures of our dog-to-be and his friends. Today I was headed to the north end of the island to the soi dog shelter, but Shane needed to head south to go surfing. Our solution was to rent a bike from the place down the road, not too expensive and then we could both go where we needed to. Or at least so we thought...

I headed up the highway and stopped to fill the bike up with gas. After filling it wouldn't start! The nice guys at the gas station helped me kick start it (the electric starter was dead) and I was off.

Fifteen minutes later I was driving along when I heard a "pop" and suddenly the engine was revving but the bike wasn't going anywhere. The belt had snapped :( I called Shane and he gallantly came to my rescue at a TINY repair shop in the middle of nowhere (a cow across the road was roaming around eating grass while my bike was fixed). We switched bikes so he could take the broken one back (and then head out south to the beach) and I could still get to soi dog since I was halfway there.

I headed off on our bike, and arrived at soi dog just in time to answer my phone. It was Shane "arrrrrgh the belt broke again, I am stranded on the side of the highway". I quickly explained to the soi dog staff the reason for my super quick visit, and headed off to rescue Shane.

After I found Shane on the side of the road we went back to get the original mechanic, who talked on the phone to the rental place. The rental place said they would come get the bike, of course this is Thailand so they didn't exactly jump on it and we waited from around 11 to 2 for someone to show up. Too late to go to soi dog we headed home...

What a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad motorbike!

Driving

When we first arrived we said "we'll never do that". Now we brave Thailand's roads on a daily basis, along with numerous people, dogs, vendors and the occasional buffalo. It is not like driving in Canada. Here is an illustration of the average 7 minute ride to school. The bits in red are the things that happen.

Pug on a Motorbike

A regular occurrence here in Thailand, for your viewing pleasure here is a pug on a motorbike. We have seen much bigger dogs sitting in this same fashion, but not managed to snap a photo. Not much to say about this one, except enjoy!

The Lady's Club of Thailand

Well, I've had my induction into the Lady's Club of Thailand...

Apparently this happens to all the Thai ladies. I was sitting side-saddle on the motorbike when we had a little tip carrying Shane's surfboard to the beach and I ended up with some painful, but not too serious, 2nd degree burns. Lesson learned and we've now had a blacksmith make us a side rack for the board, so we'll be riding much more safely! Unfortunately this means that I live on an island but I can't go swimming until the bandages come off, sigh.

I love my Fino

Breaking news this mother's day sunday... we have become the proud owners of a motorbike! No more grocery shopping at 7-11, now we can get out to Tesco! No more taking SUPER SLOW buses to the beach, now we can get there ourselves. It is also convenient to be able to go places that are outside walking distance from the apartment. We are definitely looking forward to increased mobility.

Not too shabby! We ended up buying it off a guy who was upgrading from this to something fancier for his girlfriend :) which meant the price was definitely right.

So, for all you prospective visitors, come on down and you can go for a spin (seats up to six lol)! : )

Wine and Wild Animals Weekend

Well, it was definitely a different sort of holiday from the island retreats we have been on recently! This weekend we headed northeast to the National Park, Khao Yai. We started off the weekend by waking up at "sparrow's fart" (a term introduced to us by our friends) and taking the first bus up to Pak Chong where we rented motorbikes. Then the fun could begin! We biked up into the mountains and immediately noticed the cooler temperatures and the clean jungle air, as well as the monkeys hanging out on the road! For our Friday in the park we rented tents, blankets and a "mattress" from the park office. Unfortunately the "mattress" was just a THIN woven straw mat, more useful for laying out on the grass for a picnic than cushioning your rest!

Once we had our tents set up we enjoyed some lunch, and got to see what Thai people do in a national park. Unlike National parks at home, where you would get fined for so much as THINKING about feeding the animals or dropping garbage, the national parks here are a little more relaxed. This picture is of some Thai people taking pictures of a deer, they then proceded to bring it all kinds of treats, including ice cream and bananas.

These kids thought that they wanted to feed the deer, but then they got scared.

We had a great day, hiking around following traces of elephants (elephant poop). In the evening we went out on a night safari. This seemed like something that we should do as tourists in Thailand, but we weren't expecting much. We boarded the noisy old truck and headed off with a Thai man holding a spotlight as our guide. Although we didn't expect to see many animals, we saw a ton! We saw: 3 kinds of deer (including a tiny baby barking deer, about the size of a cat! so cute) 2 civets, 3 porcupines, a wild dog called a Dhole and for the finale... 8 wild elephants at a salt lick! It was so amazing to see elephants in the wild, especially since there were quite a few resorts on the way up which has some pretty sad looking elephants that they were using for tourism... sad elephants are a really hard thing to see. It was amazing to see them in their natural habitat.

That night was a bit rough, since it was a long weekend the place was packed and there were people talking ALL NIGHT LONG! We woke up groggily in the morning and headed out on a long jungle hike. We were hoping to see some gibbons (another kind of monkey) but unfortunately they seemed to be hiding. No matter where we walked we always heard them 1 km or so behind us! However, we did have a great hike and saw some more signs of the elephants, although no luck seeing an actual elephant.

This second photo is from the observation tower at the end of our walk!

That night we headed out to a hotel, needing a little more comfort. After a much needed night's sleep we went for a tour around Thai wine country. We had no idea that this place even existed! We went to two different wineries, one of which had some really good wine! Hannah even took a turn driving the motorbike. We bought a bottle and then had to head back to check out and get back to reality... a great weekend overall!