How I Broke My Shoulder in Pai

Good morning from Pai! The mopeds we had booked the day before were delivered on time to our Bodega hostel. Here’s Andy upon his steed.

On our last moped road trip, we’d shared a bike. Both of us hated being a passenger. Having a bike each meant we could ride with more enjoyment and more speed. That’s a bloody great idea…

First stop on our trip around Pai: The White Buddha.

It’s up on a hill and you can see it from some points in Pai. It was technically closed because of the coronavirus, but it was also kinda open… There was nobody here to socially distance from, so we went up.

F*ck me. It’s on sweaty days like this that you realise how unfit you are. I counted 292 steps from the car park to the big white boy, but fatigue may have caused me to miscount. I didn’t go back to the start to recount – soz.

White Buddha, featuring white man.

The view from up here is spectacular…

…apparently. It’s probably better out of Burning Season.

Walking back down was only a little less fun than walking up. On a bus in Bangkok 4 days prior, I’d tripped and inadvertently plunged my knee into the step into the bus. It was still giving me a bit of grief.

Just keep whinging David… just keep whinging…

BTW.

VID’S TOP TIP: Take a sneaky photo of one of these.

If you’re not sure on where to go in Pai, here are your answers. It’s a bit harsh on the locals, but sometimes you’ve gotta think of your own funds. This trip cost 300 baht each, whereas renting a bike costs 150-200 baht.

Just don’t crash it.

Across to the other side of Pai we went. This is Yun Lai Viewpoint, a very famous Pai destination. If you visit at the right time, you can take some spectacular photos of the clouds rolling over the Pai valley. Unfortunately, we didn’t have cloud.

Parched land and smog. It wasn’t a pretty vista.

It costs 20 baht to get to the actual viewpoint. Not a lot but I was having none of that. There was literally nothing to view, other than pollution.

Up here, you could see how bad it really was – a film of grey separated the land from the sky.

From our disappointment at Yun Lai Viewpoint, we headed to our next stop on the list: The Land Split, a giant crack in the earth caused by an earthquake, in which you can walk.

Alas. Just like the White Buddha, it was closed because of the pandemic.

We rode on to Pam Bok Waterfall.

Where there was no water.

Access to the waterfall is free for locals and 40 baht for us. It was open, but as Thailand was at the time in a drought, we didn’t feel like it was worth viewing. This is not a site worth paying to visit in the dry season.

Next up on the tour was the Bamboo Bridge.

In wetter times, this place is a beautiful lush green. The drought had turned the land brown.

Tbh, we weren’t sure if the place was actually open or abandoned. Or if it is always unmanned. Anyhow we went onto the bamboo walkways that bridge out through the rice fields.

It was hot and there was little shade out here. We could see the bridge stretching away into the distance. The adventurer in me wanted to explore, keep walking until we found an end. But the little northern English boy in me thought it was too hot.

There are some swings on which you can sit and have an Instagram photo shoot, so your friends and followers think you’re having a great time.

There’s also a large fish pond (some catfish and some orange ones – watch out Attenborough, I’m coming for you), with a fish food station. The food is free, but you can offer a donation to the local school.

There was a little shop/cafe at the entrance to the Bamboo Bridge. Again, it seemed quite sad cos of the lack of people around. We used the wifi, had a packet of crisps and continued on.

OK… Let’s get this one out of the way…

So if you’re new to moped riding like I was, you may have the same issue I had in struggling to pull away with balance. Well, I pulled out of a junction to turn right (Thai roads are the same and British roads, where you drive on the left side) and noticed a car coming up behind me. So naturally, I sped up to get across the road and to the motorcycle lane on the left hand side, so he could overtake me. But I have no balance on a bike, it seems!

I went too quickly, felt the front wheel slide, opened up the steering and ran wide onto the grass, and inevitably went down. No damage, other than a few scrapes to the bike and my pride.

I caught up with Andy (who had raced ahead as usual) and he did his best to hide his laughter.

Here’s me at the Big Brown Monk, trying to pretend nothing had happened.

The bike (for now) looked ok. I reckoned I could get away with not paying for any damage…

Next, we continued along the famous 1095 road, passed Pai Canyon and up to the Pai WW2 Memorial Bridge.

Bridge Over the River Pai.

And that was that for our Pai moped tour! All that was left to do was go back to the Bodega…

I’m gonna need Google Maps to help me here, and my sweet Paint skills.

There’s Andy, there’s me, and our direction of travel.

Now, those two cars had just overtaken me after the previous bend in the road and were approaching Andy. However, the next bend was tighter, and uphill. Andy was in the motorcycle lane, giving the cars enough space to get through, but the one in front braked. He wanted to wait til after the bend to overtake Andy. Fair.

Naturally, the second car braked, and instinct told me to brake. But it was much sooner than I had expected to brake. Therefore, I braked harder than I wanted to. The front wheel wobbled and I remember in that split second, having a choice between controlling the wobble – but running out of road and down into the trees, or to throw it down on the tarmac. I went with the latter.

Down I went, and across the tarmac I slid. I was probably going somewhere between 30-40mph – I dunno cos my speedo didn’t work.

Luckily, there wasn’t a car, or a truck, following me. I lay in the road, very winded and very sore.

I stood up. Some Western guy with long hair came along on his own moped, and just rode on. Didn’t offer to help. Nice guy.

I limped over to my moped and the pain in my shoulder (where I had hit the floor) was horrible. It was a mess. Cracks and scrapes everywhere. A mirror was missing. The left-hand brake handle had completely bent back on itself.

I tried to lift it up and realised I had absolutely zero strength in my left arm. It felt like something wasn’t connected in my shoulder – like the muscles were contracting and not moving anything.

A Thai lady was next on the scene and she did stop. She asked if I was ok and I tried to style it out. She offered to take me to the hospital, but I refused – my pride was so shot and I didn’t want to leave my bike on the side of the road. How had I fallen off AGAIN?

I actually also remember in that split second of going down, thinking “OMG not again.”

Meanwhile, a long way up the road, Andy had noticed I’d disappeared and stopped to wait. A Western guy with long hair stopped to tell him someone had gone down back down the road. Andy was stunned. He actually didn’t believe I’d done it again. He rode back and found me and the Thai lady.

I convinced her I’d be ok and she left. A SHOUTOUT TO THE THAIS. They are genuinely so lovely and often try to help you out even when you don’t ask for it. Such nice people, in contrast to the knobhead with the long hair.

I convinced Andy I could still ride. My bike was battered but still functional. The problem was I couldn’t put my left hand on the handlebars. I had to lift it up with my right arm and place it there. When my arm wasn’t moving it was actually ok. The pain only stabbed me when I tried to move it by itself.

The shoulder was obviously the main concern of mine, but my ribs were pretty painful, as was my left knee and all the scrapes I’d acquired.

We rode on, very slowly. We came to a shop and I had to stop for a drink. And some ice.

We stopped by a pharmacy to buy iodine antiseptic and saline.

I somehow made it back to the Bodega, where the receptionist was quick to patch me up.

Again, I didn’t need to ask – she just sat me down.

I was in a pretty bad place to get all these cuts. Pai is a bit of a dirty town thanks to the air pollution, so I had to clean my cuts and apply fresh iodine every two hours. And I had to wear long-sleeves and trousers, to cover up my wounds. It was a ball-ache. Goodbye sunbathing.

Thankfully Nurse Andy was on hand to help me. He even helped me get dressed. I was thankful that he didn’t make fun of me, even though I deserved it.

The damage to the bike ended up costing me 3500 baht (about £90). The karma of taking a photo of that company’s sign and hiring a moped to save 100 baht, had truly hit me.

The thought at the time was that my shoulder may be dislocated. Then I thought it might be muscle damage. I didn’t know what to think as I’d never broken a bone before. I was advised to go to the doctors, or the hospital, but I ignored this. I knew, if it was broken, or dislocated or badly damaged, there was a chance I wouldn’t be allowed to fly home. I couldn’t risk this – there were barely any airlines still operating and I could not get stranded in Thailand until the pandemic eased…

A week later I got myself checked out in England.

I’d broken my acromion at the top of my shoulder blade.

That was the last time the world ever saw David Banks on a motorcycle.