Motorbiking Madness

Ahh Koh Chang was a perfect introduction of what is to come later on for Thailand.  A great little island getaway! But on the last day when we needed to get back to the other side of the island to catch the ferry that brought us to the bus that we needed to catch to Bangkok in order to catch the overnight Train that leaves for Chaing Mai… 

Well that day was a bit of an adventure.

It started off alright, I was doing some last minute checking in on the time table of the different buses and trains and ferries we would be using to get all the way from Koh Chang to Chaing Mai…

We grabbed all our bags and piled them onto the motorbike, praying it would not rain today while we made the 1 hour journey back to the other side of the island where the boat had dropped us off. 

ANNNNNDD we were off!  Koh Chang is similar to all of the Thai islands in that it features crazy windy roads down very steep mountains!

About ½ hour into the ride I noticed the gas gauge. Oh yea gas… crap. Forgot that just because my backpack was blocking my view of the gauge didn’t eliminate it’s importance.  Empty.  Great. Not a big deal, I’m very comfortable riding around on empty, except I hadn’t know how long the bike had been on Empty…  Hmm… We’ll I’ll just make sure to stop at the very next Gas station. No problem.

I felt like the little engine that could on some of the huge hills with Kate and I piled on the motorbike with 3 large bags….

Weeee…. WEee… Weee…. Put put POWWWW… Crap.

I was able to turn the bike around and start coasting back down the hill, but unfortunately we were a bit of a ways from the nearest "gas station". So I left Kate with the bike and went in search of fuel. Stopping a few places but they all just kept pointing down the road.  Well 20 minutes later I had a bottle of fuel.  (fuel is sold in alcohol liter bottle on the Thai islands),

Alright! after returning the bottle to the store we were off again!

And about 20 minutes later we were completely out of gas. Again.  On another huge set of hills…  It was funny, but I wasn’t laughing.

Alright well at least I know there was a gas vendor closeby, we coasted back down the hill and bought another bottle, filled our thirsty steed.  Alright time to go, wait the bikes not starting. GREAT.  Haha I was starting to get a little worried about our overall transportation schedule. If we don’t make it to our ferry we’re gonna be stuck somewhere for the night.  Not the end of the world, but we had a good plan and I wanted to see it through.

Well about 10 minutes of not starting we had unloaded the bike and started acting like opening the seat cover would fix it. Well, IT worked and the bike started. Who’da thought.   Cool and on our way we were.

Also, just for the record we actually made it all the way to Chaing Mai as planned. Although a few adjustments were made :)