Nico is another expat who is here in Malaysia and has quite a reputation as a tour guide even though he has only been here 2 months longer than me. In fact, just about everyone who has been to Malaysia during Nico's assignment has their own special "Nico story." I'd managed to find excuses for the past 5 months to stay locked in my apartment, but I knew if I wanted to get away and forget about my troubles for a few days, Nico was the guy to go with.
We decided to go to Langkawi Island, which is about a 90 minute car ride north to the ferry, and then a 90 minute ferry ride west. We arrived around noon on Saturday and were ready to let loose.
Having been there before, Nico recommended that we rent scooters to tour the island. What could be more fun? Unlike at home, we didn't need any complicated driving lessons or lengthy insurance forms - once they found two bikes that could start, we handed over about $35USD and we were on our way. Nico had a small scooter, but I was lucky enough to get a full sized motorcycle! Just look at the smile on my face:
I did find it odd when Nico was starting his scooter and ran into another scooter in the parking lot, breaking it's license plate and mirror, but I figured he was just goofing around. Surely he had enough experience on bikes and scooters that such an incident wouldn't happen by accident! Little did I know...
Nevermind that my helmet didn't fit, that I only had a t-shirt and swim trunks on, or that I'd never driven a motorcycle further than a few hundred yards - I was ready for my "Live to Ride" tattoo! No wonder people get passionate about motorcycles - this was exhilarating! It was only noon on the day before my birthday - what a great weekend lay ahead of us!
Next up was jet skiing. Fresh off the fun of riding a "hog", we skipped right past the 15 minute rental and signed up for 30 minutes each. Just look how ready and eager I am to hit the open water! They gave me the 30 second safety overview and as soon as the guy finished talking, I hit the throttle and didn't let go for 20 minutes.Have you ever tried to ride a jet ski at full speed for 30 minutes straight? I'm sure there are people in much better shape than me who can do it just fine, but it is really tiring! Even though you're seated, your internal organs get bounced all over the place, all your muscles are tight the entire time, and you're sliding back and forth all over the seat. After 20 minutes I was exhausted and sore. I tried standing for a while in order to get the most out of my final 10 minutes, but all that did was tire out my legs and hurt my feet - a rugged outdoorsman I am not. I ran out of gas just as my 30 minutes was ending and I was clear in the middle of the ocean. They towed me back in and I checked to make sure no body parts had fallen off unexpectedly.
Incidentally, if you haven't been on a jet ski lately, the warning labels have gotten incredibly specific. You can click the link to see a picture of it, but i won't include it here in case you haven't had your coffee and toast yet today - not for the feint of heart. The woman in the picture sure looks happy that she has her wetsuit on. This is not a joke - apparently it's a real problem that has been happening more and more (highlighted in this news story).
So by comparison to some, I survived the jet ski in great shape, just somewhat stiff and shaken up. For future reference, 15 minutes on a jet ski is plenty. Right as we got back to shore, a heavy rainstorm rolled in, so we waited it out at a nearby restaurant and caught our breath.
Once the rain stopped, we hopped on our bikes for a fun cruise around the island including a brief stop at a secluded beach just before sunset.
With my clear glasses back at the hotel, we decided to head back before it got too dark.
It turns out that wet roads can be pretty dangerous, particularly on a motorcycle, in the dark, when they have oil on them and you can't see very well because you're wearing sunglasses at dusk.
About 5 minutes from being safely back at our hotel, we
rounded this turn at about 35mph (we were traveling in the same direction as the car in the background). Nico hit a patch of wet oil. His bike immediately laid down and once he was detached from it, it flipped in the air and ended up in this ditch facing exactly opposite the way we were traveling. We don't have any pictures of it because we were worried someone else would crash into us, but it looked really crazy.
Nico's bike wasn't the cause of this guardrail being bent in half (his scooter only weighed about 100 pounds), but we suspect that the accident that ended in this guardrail was what sprayed oil on this strip of road. After all, why clean up spilled oil when you can leave it there for the next guy to slip on?
Despite my extensive experience (almost 2 full hours!) of motorcycle riding, I had no idea what to do in such a situation. I saw an accident in front of me, so I hit the brakes. Turns out that's the wrong thing to do - motorcycles don't have anti-lock brakes or airbags. My bike went down milliseconds after Nico's and was then sliding towards him in a flash of sparks across the oil slick (fortunately nothing ignited, although that may have made this story even more exciting).
It is a miracle that Nico and I were not seriously injured - mere scratches on our arms and legs. Turns out there was so much oil, it prevented us from serious "road rash" and we were going slow enough that there were no broken bones. Considering my father managed to break 4 ribs and his collarbone 15 years ago in a very similar accident, I could not have been much luckier! (more pictures are available in the attached Picasa Web Album) The same day that I realized why motorcycle riding is so great, I realized why it's so dangerous.
Neither bike was significantly damaged (although Nico's bike lost both it's mirrors in the process), so we pulled his bike out of the ditch and headed back for the hotel. We got cleaned up and went to dinner, still quite shaken up. The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful if you don't count the fact that Nico was served a steak still cold in the middle and then served chicken when he asked for it to be cooked longer - but hey, we had just cheated death, how could we complain?
The next morning we got up and went to breakfast and saw another couple with much worse road rash wounds that looked fresh. Nico struck up a conversation with them and it turns out they had the same accident as we did! Their bike was not driveable and the rental owner estimated it was going to cost them $600USD in damages (which may not sound like much, but for a $20 rental, it's a lot).
Nico assured me that we had to go to one more attraction on Sunday before heading back home. We drove over to a cable car that takes you from sea level to a viewpoint 700 meters up (2300 feet). After the bike accident, I was jumpy every time the car wiggled funny, but there were some incredible views.It was a very cool final stop on the trip, but I was looking forward to getting back on firm ground. Just as we were getting in line to take the cable car back to the parking lot, we started to see black smoke billowing out of the intermediate station! This is not the reassurance I was looking for. After getting lucky with the motorcycle crash, now we were going to die in a fiery cable car accident hundreds of feet above the ground?!
Turns out we made it down ok. We drove cautiously back to the ferry and got the heck out of there before the sky started falling down on us.
On the drive back from Langkawi, Nico regaled me with tales of other friends and family he has endangered either through his bad driving or recommendations of dangerous activities. Now I'm starting to think that people don't have "Nico stories" because they want them - they have "Nico stories" because they live through them and want to share with other people the dangers of hanging out with him!
Just the same, we have a few more weeks before we head back to the US, so we might as well make the most of it. Nico says he knows of a place in Thailand where they juggle flaming torches on unicycles and we can sign up to do it for only $5. Sounds like fun I guess - at least I'll have something interesting to blog about if I live through it! It's been 2 days since the jet ski and the accident and I still can't walk right, but I sure had plenty to write about.
If you're interested in more pictures from our Langkawi adventure, feel free to view the web album here:
1 comment:
Great stuff....I just got back from Shanghai 3 weeks ago and the weather was nice but it rained a little. Great pics and looks like your birthday went smashing...so to speak. Send me some email some time want to catch you up on stuff here...:)
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