Lots of Thai bashing goes on in Thaivisa so wanted to pass on an experience I had on a ride from my home on Koh Samui to Phuket.

Neil and I were taking his Sportster in to the new Harley shop in Phuket to have its virgin service done, it only has 1000km on it! I was on my Versys and we were looking forward to a nice bit of riding.

Ok, just got off the 44 and headed north when my bike starts making weird clunking noise, not good thinks I as we pull over and to our horror discover metal shavings on my rear rim. Wheel bearing coming apart faster than a bar girl marriage! Oh crap, right at the half way point of the ride. Neil goes on ahead to see if one of the garages up the road can hook me up with a truck to Kawasaki Phuket because my bike isnt going anywhere under its own steam.

So there I am, sitting and waiting when a couple of Thai gentleman stop at the roadside sala I am in and we start chatting, couple of nice guys who work in the mobile phone industry. Subject comes up of my bike and I tell him how screwed I am in the middle of nowhere and before I can finish he is burning up his phone calling everyone he knows to get me and my bike to Phuket! Not long until he says "no problem, my friend is on the way!" Two other nice lads show up with a pickup, we wrestle the beastie into the back and we are off to Kawi Phuket! Very reasonable 4000thb for their time and effort so on to Kawi Phuket! Used the time in the truck to call Kawi and as it looks like we will not get into Phuket town before they close the service manager says "no problem, one of my techs will stay until you show up!" They repaired the rear wheel the next day and I went to pick it up, all better and good for the ride home.

Bottom line is that these very kind people conspired together to save my sorry ass. At no benefit to themselves everyone involved went the extra mile to help someone who needed a little hand....me!

I doubt that anyone involve with my story will ever read this but I just wanted to put it out there because I was so truly grateful.

Thank You.

Nice one.

I've also experienced kindness when stuck on the roadside with a broken bike. Strangers then but now real friends.

I have also had nothing but kindness and helpful people when I have had a bike break down on me. One place let me store the bike overnight so it would be safe until I could pick it up the next day, and then took me on the back of their bike to the town center so I could get on a bus to Bangkok.

Same here,I broke down(throttle cable snapped)at my local PTT station and the pump attendant jumped onto his wave and pushed me back home.

Didn't want to take a tip,said it was his duty to help!.

:-)