Traveling the World

Ever since the accident I’ve been careful. So careful I missed out on one of the most amazing experiences in life: a speedboat tour of the Phi Phi islands in Thailand. I told myself I have to come back to Thailand one day so I can do this tour. Maya Bay was the filming location for “The Beach,” a Leonardo DeCaprio film. I have rested in bed each day and missed out on the opportunity of swimming and other things.

The staff of the hotel felt bad for me, so the first day they made a 3 or 4 egg omelette instead and didn’t charge me (brought it into my room). The following days they used the hotel truck to drive me to get food and see the doctor

I am feeling a bit better today because much of the initial shock and pain have subsided. Last night I went to a neighborhood doctor and he took my dressings off and cleaned out all the wounds. Before I saw him I knew my big toe hurt so I couldn’t walk on it, but I didn’t realize until after I saw it that the whole toe was swollen. I asked him to look at it and he determined nothing was broken (obviously, because I could move the toe to walk, but it still hurt). He said it would be fine.

The thing that sucks about living/traveling in third world countries is that they don’t believe Neosporin or bacitracin works. I asked the doctor and several pharmacies in town, and none of them carried it, except one place that wanted to charge me 200 baht for a small tube (about $5). So now I have to use rubbing alcohol and iodine for the next week before I can get home to China and start using the Neosporin (and I hope it won’t be too late for my wounds to heal properly).

Today we are going back to Bangkok. Because of protests in Thailand, the main road from Krabi to Bangkok is closed, so we have to get off at a city 3 hours away called Surat Thani and take a different bus down a different road so we can make it.

This morning we rolled out on our motorbikes with me in the lead. Today was my day to shine, to show my friends I wasn’t useless and could plan a day trip. Everything went as planned. I got us where we needed to go without any problems. Around 1:30 we were leaving the Mangrove Forest Walkway that leads to the Khao Khanab Nam cave to go back home when I had an accident on the bike.

We were in a parking lot and a truck started up the hill to go back onto the street, and 2 of the bikes in my party were already at street level, so i gunned it to beat the truck so i wouldn’t lose my friends. Well, bad luck for me because I hit the ramp at a weird angle and couldn’t turn in time and I went over the mini median and hit a mangrove tree. I was wearing a helmet, but also sandals. The truck driver rushed me to the emergency room because I lost a lot of skin. In the end, I have an abrasion on my left ankle, 2 on my right elbow, one really bad wound on my right palm (you can see a clear layer of skin lost, and a little bit of the muscle), a bad wound on my right knee, and 3 terrible wounds on my big right toe (lost A LOT of skin there). I’ll post pictures when I get back to China since I can’t upload any pictures right now. They gave me good dressing and pain meds and antibiotics, and all I had to pay was 470 baht (about $13).

I had to pay 6520 baht ($195) in damages for the bike