Flat Out

The other day, on our way back from picking up Rayluk's birth certificate, we got a flat tire. I thought I could get the bike to the nearest gas station, but it felt like it was going to wreak havoc on the tire if I kept riding. So I stopped. Right in front of a bike repair shop!? You go figure? Someone from the restaurant next store ran in back real quick and got the guy who owns the repair shop. He came out. Didn't say a word. Looked at the bike. Rolled it inside his 5 foot wide shop. Removed the tire and inner tube from the wheel without removing the wheel from the bike. Quickly found the hole and patched it within a minute. He turned to me and said yi sip baht (20 baht, or 50¢ to you and me!?). I gave him 40 baht (a whole dollar). He nodded and went back inside.

Now, a similar event happened to us last year while filming in Cambodia. We needed to ride out to a certain temple to shoot. The way there was one long strip of road raised above the flood plain, which was currently flooded. About half way there, Colin got a flat. We stopped at a place to that gave us some air and pointed back the way we'd come. A few miles back we found the repair shop he was talking about. We watched as he finished up the bike he'd been working on. He started it up. Three guys climbed on and putted away. He grabbed Colin's bike and did pretty much the same maneuver getting the inner tube out without removing the wheel. Now, out there, he didn't have anything fancy like rubber patches or glue, so he sanded down a bit of the tube and pulled out part of an old engine cylinder. He lit a fire inside it, and when it got hot enough, he set it on a scrap of rubber he'd placed over the hole. He let the whole thing sit for a few minutes, then re-seated the tire and got us on our way. $5 (they use US dollars there).

I would have thought Cambodia would have been cheaper, but then again there's that old US dollar at work. I'm not even sure how much this would have cost back in the states. I feel it's just too dangerous to ride back in LA.

*During the Chiang Mai part of that same trip, Colin also rented a bike that the arm for the kick starter snapped off of. We had to have it welded back on so he could make it back to town. Thanks Chai!