Scootin along.....

We kind of skipped straight to the Tiger Temple and what we did there without writing about how we got there. This is the part where it's a good thing I am not left to my own devices. I have the voice of reason with Tammy and the voice of “you ain’t right in the head” with Suzi.

See, I wanted to ride scooters in… well anywhere. In Manila of course there wasn’t time. Suzi said something about a death wish and Tammy thought I was sick and wanted to take my temperature. That meant scooters in Manila were a resounding “no!”.

In Bangkok I wanted to ride scooters. But I now realize that Tammy and Suzi used a diversionary process the same way you would offer a lollipop trade to a 2 year old playing with sharp knives. In this case a foot massage was suggested. Scooters… what scooters?

In Chiang Mai we had actually discussed riding scooters up to the Do Su Thep Temple. Every time it was brought up (every time I brought it up) Suzi’s lower lip would quiver and I would hear Tammy whisper to her...“Don’t worry we’ll find a way to distract her again.”. I think the rehabilitated prisoners are not so rehabilitated and have probably violated their parole in some sort of a fraud conspiracy perpetrated with Tammy and Suzi…. Bad Suzi! Bad Tammy!

When we got to Kanchanaburi, the moratorium on scooters was finally lifted. The Oriental Kwai had scooters on site so I could no longer be distracted with massage lollipops. It was like getting a hotel across from Disneyland. Besides, these were not your ordinary scooters..these babies were totally pimped out!

We asked… (I asked and I had to keep telling myself, “… Must stay focused… must not be side-tracked by the Evil Conspirators… must hold the same train of thought for more that 47 seconds.”) I asked Evelien if it was possible to ride scooters to the Tiger Temple and Erawan Falls. She pulled out a map and explained the route to me… okay I lied … she explained to Suzi and Tammy.

Once I heard, “Ya sure you can do that” I had all the information I needed. Besides the squiggly lines on the paper called a map are just silly. We got up at the “bum-crack” of dawn and headed out on the highway. We stopped at the local market so we could get breakfast for the monks at the temple. The monks can only eat till noon every day so their only meal is often breakfast. This is a “merit offering” that many Thai's make to the monks each day.

There wasn’t a McDonald’s where we could drive through and get half a dozen Egg McMuffins so we had to go to the local street vendors. We weren’t sure what to get and as we can’t speak Thai and they could not speak English. We did a little charade where we walked like monks and then acted like we were eating. The people loved it and we got five sacks of Monk food to go.

We left the little town and started out into the country-side making a “Suzi Scooter Sandwich." Tammy was in the lead, I was at the rear and Suzi was in the middle. See I told you a “Suzi-Scooter-Sandwich”. It was honestly a bit surreal as we motored past rice paddies with green graceful mountains in the back ground. We got several smiles and a couple of children waving at us. We think it was a bit of an oddity to see westerners, especially women out on scooters riding around.


Don't let the waves or smiles fool you. No doubt from our pictures you will get a sense of how tough and cool our scooter gang looked... a terror in Thailand. Most people waved hoping they were flashing the right gang signs so we wouldn't beat them up.