So…this weekend, I kicked back, as planned. Except Saturday morning there were loud explosions going on outside my window starting at 6:30 AM, I thought we might be under attack by the Burmese. Except we weren’t. It was just Chinese New Years which means alllll day long, people were setting off fire crackers, EVERYWHERE. The owner of the internet café I go to was throwing a party with a cooked duck (head still attached!), candles and beer. He even gave me a complimentary beer along with the coffee candy he normally gives me whenever I visit.

Then on Sunday, I was supposed to go horseback riding, but that didn’t happen. I was on my way to pick up one of the volunteers, Lorna, on my bike. Just a block away from her house, I drove through an intersection and got clocked by an SUV coming from the side street on the left. I just remember the initial crash into my left leg, my moped falling, and my body flying in slow motion onto the pavement closer to the other side of the street. I lay down there for a second, wind knocked out of me and took my helmet off for some air. Then I looked behind me and saw my bike laying down and the pieces that had broken off all around it. “Damn,” was my reaction, just under my breath, ignoring exactly how lucky I was to be able to even process what had just happened. I was still laying in the middle of the intersection, so I hoisted myself up with the support of my helmet and started limping to the side of the road.

So the driver gets out of the SUV and runs immediately to inspect the front of his car to see the damage that was done. He must have seen that I was walking and so his priority then became his car, but this still struck me as insensitive, especially because as far as I was concerned, this was totally his fault. Then I looked at where his car was coming from: there was no traffic sign there, no stop sign. This surprised me, and then for a second, I was horrified at the prospect of this accident being my own fault. But I looked at where I was coming from: no traffic sign there either. No stop sign in any 4 directions of the intersection, and so at the end of the day, it’s no one’s fault except for Mae Sai’s crappy urban planning.

The crash apparently made a loud noise because within a minute, tons of people had come out of their houses to see what happened, including Lorna, who heard the crash from her house down the street. A crowd of maybe 10 people started surrounding me. One guy even came out of his house with a first aid kit and iodine to clean up my scratches…I didn’t have that many coz I was wearing jeans and a denim jacket: they were mostly on my palms and my left leg where I made impact with the car. The police came by, surprisingly pretty quickly. I tried calling Cindy to come over and act as my translator, but the cops were apparently willing to dismiss the whole thing in about 2 minutes because I couldn’t communicate with them in Thai and so they just left. Mae Sai’s finest: gotta love ‘em. I was really curious to know, was this considered my fault? It’s not a new biker thing, coz I garauntee you, I would have done the same thing if I were behind the wheel of a car. Lorna tried to convince me it was the SUV guy’s fault because he was coming out of a smaller side street, but when did that become a rule? This country, even this town, has traffic lights and stop signs in most intersections, why wasn’t there one here? So apparently there weren’t gonna be any charges pressed or anything, the SUV driver gave me his phone number (his name is pronounced “Nice.” I thought it was ironic). I don’t even know if the concept of pressing charges exists over here, but even if it does, I doubt I’m eligible to do so without a license.

I just wanted to go home and lay back some more; take a raincheck on the whole horseback riding thing, obviously. I insisted that Cindy take Lorna horseback riding and some really nice Thai local drove me to my guest house…where I live on the third floor. The receptionist gave me the key looking a little shocked, and I limped to the third floor, gripping the railing with both hands the entire way up. By the time I got to my room I was out of breath. I changed out of my jeans and into some pj shorts and just collapsed into bed. Then my phone rang; it was reception saying a car was ready to take me to the hospital, just to make sure everything was ok. Seconds later, my door knocked. I limped up to get to the door and there were 3 staff members, who insisted on picking me up and carrying me into the car.

Note: I’m about 165 pounds and these were three Thai guys picking me up: ie, they were kindof tiny and they struggled a lot to carry me. So I went to the hospital, got X rays, the whole shebang. No fractures or anything, like I’d suspected coz I’d be in a LOT more pain otherwise. I did, however, sprain my ankle. They ace bandaged it and they told me I had to stay off it for a few days. They gave me tons of drugs, which I’ve yet to take because I’m really not in any pain. I was all ready to whip out my health insurance card when I was handed the bill on my way out: 160 baht (that’s $4), so I paid in cash and I was driven home. And carried to my room again. The guest house managed to find me a crutch to walk with(they’re so nice), which the hospital didn’t have, and now I’m more or less an invalid. I left my bike at Lorna’s and now Cindy or another volunteer has to pick me up to go to work until my ankle gets better and I brave the bike again.

So that was my weekend. And I had tons of time to sit at my computer to write about all this, lying in bed with my foot propped up on a pillow. That’s why this entry is as long as it is. It’s not really my intention to lament to the world about it: I literally just have nothing better to do. I should realize how lucky I am, but right now, I’m just bitter about the lack of traffic signs in town.