When was your last tetanus shot?

Or I could have titled this entry:How do you say, "where's the closest hospital?" in Thai?

or

Jodi and Bo are officially retiring from motor sports!

or

How many stitches do you get when you add two Vongsakouns and one scooter?

Okay, okay, you get the idea... no worries, we have avoided anything serious... just a little scuffed up, that's all... can you expect anything else from us?

So, we're at an island called Ko Pha Ngan... it's cloudy and windy. A bummer since we were really looking forward to this portion of the trip. Thankfully, we're very resourceful.















This is a pretty decent sized island and since the beach was less attractive today we decided to discover what the rest of the island has to offer... waterfalls, jungles, elephant treks, restaurants, etc. What's the best way to do that? Rent a moto (scooter) and cruise on your own schedule... we've done a few tours with groups and they've been a bit underwhelming... we wanted to be on our own schedule this time... great idea right?

Well, we should have stopped when we were cruising along and we stopped for some gas... while getting gas, I noticed the gas station owner had a pet monkey... really? A monkey? It was sitting on her lap, hugging her... of course, I see this and I want to get in there and play with the monkey... I sit down next to the monkey and he starts climbing all over me... very cool... he jumps all over me, funny stuff.

Then I decided to feed the monkey. I wanted to buy some bananas for my new friend but the owner said that the monkey didn't like bananas. I guess all my monkey studies over the years have proven to be a waste. Anyway, she says that the monkey really likes these Jello type desserts that her friend sells... I bought four of them that come in little cups for about 50 cents. As soon as I open one, I hand it to the monkey and he grabs it right from me... He starts scraping at the Jello dessert trying to get it out of the cup. I see this and I figure he's having a hard time getting them out of the cup so I get a knife and take another one of the cups and cut the Jello into bite sized pieces for the monkey.

Maybe the monkey enjoys scraping the Jello out because the next thing he does is jumps up and bites me in my stomach. Dude, we were just buddies! What happened?

He got me pretty good. Thankfully, no skin was broken... just a lot of laughter from Jodi and a small bruise on my tummy... I gave him the other 2 cups of dessert but didn't feel he deserved them after the aggression. I forgave him though and we are still friends.














Anyway, this monkey story has nothing to do with what happened to us, it was just a foreshadowing of future events.

Jodi and I continued our tour around the island and the further we went, the worse the roads got and the steeper the hills... Actually, the paved roads turned to dirt roads with plenty of pot holes and terrible traction... fun in a four wheeler or a dirtbike but a bit tougher to manage on a moto.

After several hours of cruising, Jodi and I are cruising up and down some hills that are alternately paved and unpaved... I naturally gain speed during the paved portions and slow down during the unpaved sections. All of a sudden!!! We go over a hill that's paved and it quickly turns unpaved and sandy on the downslope of the hill!!! Oh no!!!

Jodi and the moto come crashing down atop me and she and I slide about 10-15 feet on the gravel... all happened in slow-motion... thankfully, she landed on top of me and I took the brunt of it...

Results: Jodi has several cuts on her fingers and a scrape on her shoulder.















Me? Well the entire right side of my body is shredded... my moto gear included flip fops and swim trunks so...
















we went to the doctor to clean my wounds and take the dirt out of my cuts... while looking at the big gash on my elbow, he says that its way deeper than it looks so he pulls out the stitching needle... the favorite part of my Thai doctor? Him taking scissors to my skin and cutting "dead" parts and telling me, "Let me know if this hurts."... umm dude, you are cutting chunks of my body off of me and you have used no medication... it hurts.
8 stitches later and a lot of iodine, here we are at the internet cafe, relaying the story to you.















The first stitches in my life will cost me $60, no trips into the ocean for the right side of my body and no more massages on the right side of my body for the rest of the trip. But hey, we learned a new lesson after this and Jodi's separated shoulder last year and me rolling a 4-wheeler last year: NO MORE MOTORIZED VEHICLES WITH HANDLEBARS!!!

Do jetskis count as a vehicle? Bring it on!!!