This week my seventh grade students inadvertently made me
feel very pathetic, not to mention a little bit terrified, when they started
showing up to school on motorbikes. First of all, I don’t even know if they are
old enough to be driving (Do you turn 14 in seventh grade?), and it isn’t
exactly comforting to see them driving alongside us in traffic. But it also
brought up a bigger, ongoing issue: I cannot drive a motorbike.
I have tried to learn how to drive a motorbike/scooter three
times without success. The first time, I panicked going uphill and, remembering
that if you put down the kickstand it would turn off, tried to get off the
scooter while holding the brake, accidentally hit the gas at the same time and
had to have Win come rescue me while I stood there baffled. The second time was
mildly successful. I got going without tipping over, but then I couldn’t figure
out how to comfortably steer. It’s not like a bike, it’s not like a car, and I
just had no idea how to turn the damn thing. The third time was the most
pathetic. I had psyched myself out so badly I couldn’t even go without feeling certain
I was going to fall over or crash.
Seeing my students driving made me positive that it couldn’t
be that difficult. So, I resolved that this weekend would be the weekend I
learned to drive a scooter. This weekend, I would not panic ad I would not give
up. And since Win’s friend Becca was visiting, there was a necessity to the
situation. We rode with three of us on the motorbike, but only once. It wasn’t
pretty.
Saturday morning, I got up ready to go, eager to learn,
feeling sure of myself. Then, I started to think about all the ways I could
really and truly screw up, most of which ended in me crashing a motorbike. By
the time we arrived at Becca’s guesthouse, I was no longer confident. So when
the guesthouse owner said she only had one motorbike to rent, I figured,
clearly Becca should be the one to learn, right? I mean I have Win to drive me
around, and then I’m leaving Thailand. Becca just got here and she has a year
of needing to drive herself around. Logical though it was, I was mostly just
terrified. Of course, the guesthouse owner looked even more terrified upon
hearing the Becca had never driven a motorbike. When she nearly crashed into a
bunch of potted plants, I thought that the offer to rent the motorbike might be
revoked.
Mrs. Guesthouse Owner turned to me and asked if I knew how
to drive. In that moment I felt like I was trapped in a nightmare. But, I got
on the scooter. I gave it some gas and slowly inched forward. I crept along at
a snail’s pace, but didn’t tip over. So I kept going. Luckily, the guesthouse
is located down a small side soi, so I could drive around and practice (read:
inch along trying not to crash or throw up).
We pulled into traffic and I didn’t die. I kept up with the
pace of nearby cars, and I still didn’t die. It was phenomenal. And, once I
stopped thinking about it, steering wasn’t anything to get worked up over.
Apparently, you lean more than steer, so the whole thing starts to feel like
second nature.
All told, I probably drove a hundred kilometers (that’s a
guess, I’m still not sure what a kilometer feels like). And, by the end of the
day, even though my wrists were sore, my hands felt like they were going to
fall off from all the vibration, my eyes stung, my ass was killing me, and I’m
pretty sure I ate one of the numerous bugs that hit me in the face, I thoroughly
enjoyed driving.
