Excite Bike

"Dude, keep your legs up!"
I was yelling at Patty, my english passenger. The important thing about being a mortorcycle passenger is to not, unless absolutely necessary, put your feet down. It may seem only natural, when the bike is slowing down, and centrifugal force is diminishing, to put down your feet. This is a mistake, as it throws to driver off balance. The role of a good motorcycle passenger is to be effectively, centered, dead weight.
The reason for my new found grasp of physics laid in our present situation. Having just come from the Naga Fireball viewing, we found ourselves in the midst of a massive, asian traffic snaffu.
the first half of our journey had been extremely pleasant. driving on the shoulder of the highway, during daylight hours, through farmers fields and with low, green mountains looming in the distance. but now, with thousands of thais attempting to get home along the same route as us, we found ourselves in an entirely different situation.
picture if you will, a four lane highway. usually two lanes for each dirrection of traffic. now picture single dirrection traffic blocking all four lanes. and the spaces between said traffic, a slow but steady stream of motorcycles, weaving back and forth between lanes, much like water following the path of least resistance. add to that the darkness of night, and the growing fatigue from paying massive attention, and that's where we were.
"Just keep them up, i can handle keeping us upright."
"Okay"
The one advantage of this colosal amount of cars and bikes is that there was no shortage of light, each one emmiting it's own foreward glow. and mixing with the taillights of the next car, it added a two tone quality, and lit up every detail of the playing field.
At some point we had lost all of our group, save for a french girl and her passenger. She was quite adept at riding a bike, and was keeping a very brisk pace. It took all my nerve to keep behind her.
After about an hour of this mayhem, we finally break free of the traffic, and are now able to pick up some speed, making sure to keep close to the shoulder, allowing the much faster cars to overtake us without comprimising our safety. The ubiquitous light had now dissapeared, leaving only the light from each passing car, and our own feable headlight.
Never the less, we still kept up our pace, still keeping behind the french girl. She, after all, was making excellent time.
Thai people sure know how to pack people into a vehicle. If it wasn't a family of four on a motorbike, it was a dozen or more crammed in the back of a pickup truck. and every one that passed us by errupted with a flurry of waving hands and a chorus of Hello!
strange how being a white man riding a motorcycle makes you suddenly a celebrity.
The longer we drove, the more comfortable i became. one thing was for sure, this was something that i was never going to forget.
As i gained confidence i began to overtake some of the slower traffic, pushing the little bike in excess of 85 kmh.
My passenger, who now grasped the concept of his position, just laughed and proclaimed "i love it!"
so do I, I thought to myself...so do I