Life lesson

Today marks one month here in Tonga and over the weekend I got my first life lesson of note - don't be a tool.

After a few beers on Friday night - I have also found Tongan women becoming slightly, slightly more attractive after a month here and a few beers - I got up on Saturday morning and started to ride to work for Saturday's Under 12 competition. The ride is about 30 minutes each way and needless to say is tougher after having a few beers the night before.

Maybe not that attractive

As I started to ride one of the boys I coach went past in his family's car and opened the car's sliding door on the side of the car. This was an invitation for me to grab a hold of the door frame and get a 'free ride' all the way to work - a great idea! I did this the night before on the way home from the Billfish, the personal advisor to the current Tongan PM was driving two kiwi girls we had met home after having a few beers himself so I grabbed hold of the window frame while I was on my bike and got a free ride down the road. I clearly didn't realise then that this was a stupid thing to do.

Approximately half way from my house to the TFA playing fields the road turns to follow the in-land lagoon - this is just about the only bend in the entire trip. I was happily clinging to the car with my right hand and steadying my increasingly wobbly handle bars with my left hand when I thought it was time to let go and not push my luck. I also thought that as the car turned the corner my bike would continue going straight and I would get hit, so I let go. I was quite happy with myself getting over half way to work in five minutes but as the car I had been clinging to turned the corner an oncoming car had turned too wide and sneaked into the opposite lane. The car that I had, until a few seconds earlier, been holding onto had to swerve to the side of the road to miss the oncoming car and in the process, hit me.

I didn't last long on the bike and went over the front of the handle bars into the dirt. I was pretty lucky, the worst that happened was a couple of pretty annoying grazes across the palms of my hand (the grazes mean I cant really use my right hand for much and this shown me how useful hands really are for things like: holding a knife and fork, opening bottles, washing myself and general everyday activities). As I have been reminded it could have been a lot worse. At first I didn't really think about it as I was just annoyed that I looked like a bit of an idiot and that I had potentially broken my watch ( I have since fixed it!), but really anything could have happened and I am quite lucky.

So the life lesson learnt here is - don't be a tool. I will also be riding the entire 30 minutes to work from now on too.