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Published: October 11th 2006
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Act II.
Everything couldn't have been going better. Beautiful weather, just enough breeze to remind you that you at the beach, long inviting beaches, friendly faces! We were conquering Bali one shop and one venture at a time. Our barter skills were mad! We would stand our ground so definitely that not even the shrewdest shopkeeper could not succumb to our sweet smiles and batting eyelashes. We were in complete control and enjoying every minute of it. So when day three approaches and we (maybe a little more of me than we, but whose counting now) wanted to rent a motorbike to explore some other part of the island....it became obvious that we could do it. We were Americans! We were Mary and Mandy of the Rama Gardens. We could bargain a pair of shorts down to an ungodly price, why couldn't we rent a motorbike and drive it across the island. I mean come on.....the puzzle was nearly complete, every piece had fit perfectly.
After an early morning swim and a lazy breakfast we sat down and did some strategic planning of where to take our troops and what part of the island to defeat this day. We
Recovering. Bruised and Beaten
We made it to the beach. Thanks to a driver and about 80,000 Rupiah wanted something close, so as to not have to go too far on the motorbike that I began insisting we rent. "It will be so fun, and such an awesome story!¡" I argued to Mary. We looked at the 8x10 map of bali we had stolen from the airplane magazine. We decided we should go to Sanur beach, it's so close¡, just about 2cm away. So with no real notion of distance, and only a strong belief that we possessed superpowers, we set off to seal our fate.
Renting the bike was easy and we got a good price, just 40,000rupiah. Mary was a little nervous and made me do a test drive around the parking lot. No problem I said. As the handed me the bike sans any instructions, I almost lost it right there! Why? Because I have never driven a motorbike, but pulling from my super powers, I was sure I could pick it up. I thought, if must be like ridding a bicycle..you never forget. (I ignored the fact that I have never learned how to drive a motorbike, at least not in this life). But my loop around the parking lot was successful enough
to convince Mary to hop on the back. I navigated up to the street and paused to watch for passing traffic. Well, at this point I realized that not only had I never driven a bike, I had never driven a bike with a person on the back. These bikes are not made for more than one, even though we saw over and over again in Bali, bikes with 2, 3 or whole families. With two people the balance is much harder!..But never being one to back down or say " can't do this or I can't do that". I thought I just needed to get the hang of it and give it a bit more power. So I saw a clearing in the traffic and revved the engine, peeled out onto the rode and straight into the car parked across the road. It was a perfect crash, my shoulder took out the side mirror of the car and we so gracefully kissed the pavement. We couldn't have asked for more attention if we had wanted to. Before even realizing what happened we were surrounded by the 30 plus shop owners and workers on the street. Someone took the bike
Almost sunset at Sanur Beach
Sanur was the first resort beach in Bali. and another someone helped us into a nearby store to take inventory of our wounds. I was confident I now owned a fat lip and I could see Mary had the same, but besides a few presently invisible bruises, I was more concerned about the car and the bike. Someone kept asking Mary if we needed to go to the clinic and she felt confident, as I did, that we were ok. But someone said to her "No, not you! You're friend. There is blood on her leg!" At first I didn¡'t realize that was me, but I felt the back of my leg and saw some blood and then what looked it looked like behind my knee and saw my largest gash to date.
Ok, so we went to the clinic. The guy whose bike we crashed actually drove us. Go figure. Basically, we began to realize we were actually not super heros returned to our home planet, but stupid Americans who kept repeating, "What the hell were we thinking?" The hospital bill was ridiculously expensive. 2.3million rupiah. I had to make 2 withdrawals from the ATM because the amount for the hospital bill exceeded the most money
A long day
If you look closely you can see what our 10 seconds of motorbike earned us. you could take out at one time. In return for that hefty sum, I received five little black stitches and a souvenir from Bali that I could never return or lose.
In the end, It was probably the perfect accident. I can't imagine what could have happened if we had lasted longer than 10 seconds on the bike or gotten any farther down the road. We eventually made it bruises, stitches and all to Sanur beach, which was actually much farther than 2 cm and proved more difficult to navigate than the map made us believe. The beach was wonderful, probably more because we were still relieved to be okay. Mary got a much needed massage for 50,000 rupiah. And I took a long walk in the safe shallow water.
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Cindy
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I am so glad I didn't know this before know. Whew, glad you are OK, you silly girl!