Today I visited a Sa (Mulberry) paper farm, a Bhudist temple buried deep inside a dark and silent cave, and some hot springs where, along with my friend Yolande who is visiting from Singapore, the pair of us cooked quail eggs in a pool of boiling water. Photographs from any of those places would be suitable for today’s picture, but the real story about today is that I ended up crashing the moped.

The accident happened as Yolande and I left the hot springs. The sun had gone down and the country roads around the hot springs were in total darkness. It had rained heavily in the day and as I navigated our way along the dark roads I suddenly rode into a large unavoidable mud slick across the road.

Fortunately we were not travelling very fast as we hit the mud, but as the bike began to slide and wobble erratically I could see the mud stretched beyond the realm of simply being able to power through the problem. I knew I had to get the speed down as it was inevitable that we would come off the bike and hit the road. Within a couple of seconds the bike got beyond my control and we crashed.

Once we came to a rest I called out to Yolande to see if she was okay. Thankfully she was unhurt and already coming to my aid as I lay on the road with the moped across my arm and leg. We picked up the bike and slid our way out of the muddy part of the road where we brushed ourselves down. After a brief inspection of the bike, we just had to get back on it and ride into town where we stopped at a gas station to clean the mud from ourselves and the bike. In the light we could also see that my left knee was pretty scratched up and the left hand was cut and extremely swollen, though I wasn’t in pain.

At a nearby street food place we decided to stop and get something to eat. The cook very kindly brought out some cotton wool and rubbing alcohol for me to clean up my cuts and scratches, and while the accident didn’t really hurt, the alcohol certainly did!

My left hand little finger is very swollen, though I’m pretty sure it’s not broken.

Quite apart from being annoyed that we crashed in the first place, I am actually a little disappointed that I didn’t think to take a photograph of the crash. However, I think today’s picture, even though it was taken at the hot springs, is humorously appropriate.