I almost died.
Or at least got severely injured.
One of the two, and I’m glad that I didn’t find out which one it would have been.
In the tourist areas of Indonesia especially, people just don’t make the best driving decisions.
I say tourist areas because foreigners seem to be worse on the road than locals, from what I've seen.
Right now, I'm living in a touristy town where all of the foreigners think they're cool or something for driving a motorbike and they try to show off entirely too often.
Or maybe this is what's happening:
(lol that's so me on a motorbike)
Or they hang around here long enough, get cocky and think they're as talented at driving as a local (they're not).
So they do reckless things while driving because they think that there's no system here on the road, that there are no rules.
I know that's how it may seem, but there is a system, even if it is just organized chaos.
All that to say... I was literally standing on the sidewalk a couple of days ago, just waiting there for someone for a few minutes.
Then very close to my left side, I hear a loud BOOM. CRASH.
I started to look to the left to see who had crashed into what and what I saw instead was a motorbike on the sidewalk going VERY fast .0275 seconds from crashing into me and driving right over my body.
I have no idea how I jumped out of the way in time. I really still can't figure it out.
Apparently I need to add "cat-like-ninja-awesome-sauce-reflexes" to my resume.
It all happened so fast.
The guy on the motorbike continued driving on the sidewalk in the wrong direction and thankfully he eventually stopped his bike, but whoa.
I began to look to the left again to see what happened, and I saw a girl lying on the road with her leg trapped underneath her motorbike, and pieces of broken bike were scattered all across the road.
I was still frozen from shock of it all, and must have said something stupid like "am I okay?" or "Wow I'm okay!" because she loudly said to me "You're okay. I'm not okay!"
And yet I was STILL just frozen there on the sidewalk, not really processing anything yet. Not helping. Just standing there.
Thankfully, one guy ran from across the street to help, because nobody else stopped to help.
The girl was okay, just had bloodied up arms and legs. The guy who hit her and almost ran over me came back to also she if she was okay...
...which I respected that, at least.
But then he didn't want to take blame for the accident even though he was blatantly driving on the WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD at a speed that was wayyy too fast.
He didn't think he did anything wrong!!
He said "Yeah, well I was just trying to get around the other cars and avoid traffic" as if that justified everything and made it okay.
Then he just completely ignored the fact that he drove on the sidewalk for a good 200 ft.
Sure, locals drive on the sidewalk sometimes, but it's very different than how he did it. He did it on a main tourist road, on the wrong side of the street and way too quickly.
He's one of the ones who thinks he's been here for a month so now he can drive "like the locals."
Even the locals don't drive that bad. Goodness.
I don't know if I had a right to be so shaken up since he didn't technically hit me, but I was. It was just THAT close of a call that it took me about an hour to calm down.
Anyway, I'm better now.
Have you ever nearly avoided an accident?!
Do you have any crazy accident stories?!?
Omg, that question makes me want to tell you a funny one when I got an entire tree stuck in my car!
Lol I really want to hear your accident stories now. I know some people who have some crazy ones, and I bet you do, too!
I'm going to tag a few people to tell me their stories (you can make a post out of it if you want), feel free to nominate somebody too! I'm just so curious to hear your stories. My friend told me one the other day that was horrible but also made me laugh so hard because it was just ridiculous!
Ok so I wanna hear stories from @ttanarcy @aussieninja @karenmckersie @emjoe @goldfashioned!
Actually I want to hear ALL the stories. But hey, just for fun to get it started.
Well I don't have any crazy car crash stories but I can tell you about almost getting stuck on a 11 foot sail boat in the middle of the Gulf Of Mexico 😎
I use to live in the Florida Keys and I bought a sail boat from a man who drove it down from Michigan where he used it on the Great Lakes. It was awesome but I would never go to far from my island because it was a small boat lol. Since I was moving away I was going to sell it to a friend who lived on my same island for basically the same price I paid. The guy who sold it to me took me out a few times and showed me the ropes. After that I taught my self the rest😊.
So anyway on to my story. I took my friend out on my boat to teach him what I knew and to do some shark fishing (we wanted to eat a shark) before I sold it to him. We went out early in the morning and the water was perfect the wind and the current were going in the perfect direction to go out and come back in.... or so I thought🤔 but as the ocean does what it wants when it wants lol. It completely switched directions as a super strong wind and current came in from the Atlantic and was headed into the Gulf of Mexico with me and my buddy. With The Sail at full mast and my 30 HP electric trolling motor and full strength as well as my buddy rowing the emergency rowers we could still not overcome and tack our way through the current and were getting pulled back at a rather rapid pace. So my friend looked at me and said you are the captain of this ship what are we going to do and (still learning what to do myself after only 6 months) I came up with a plan. We still had cell phone service so I had my buddy who grew up on the island call one of his friends with a boat to come tow us as my plan A. Plan B was to tack our way to one of the other islands and hope we could make it. Oh yeah did I mention by this time the sun was setting we drank most of our water and smoked all our weed but we had fishing poles!
Well so as we anchored the boat to wait for his friend we were still going backwards fast and the sun was going to be down in maybe 30 minutes. I made the decision that his friend might not find us and we should try to get to another island. We started to put up the sail and hope for the best when all luck has it his friend found us! all in the nick of time. He had two big gas engines so he could fight the current. He pulled up next to us tossed a rope to tie down to and he started the journey back home. By the time we made it back it was dark and our life savor said we were 11 nautical miles out in the gulf and when the current first changed we where less than 3 nautical miles out.
All in all it was a life learning lesson, the sea is not to be underestimated lol
Wow I wonder if I saw you in the keys sometime and never knew it! So cool that you sail!!! I've always wanted to try it (but I'm so directionally challenged I'm pretty sure I'd get lost forever and never come back lol).
Oh yeah did I mention by this time the sun was setting we drank most of our water and smoked all our weed but we had fishing poles! << lol omg this sounds like some crazy situation I'd get myself into. This is nuts!
Wowww I can't believe his friend found you, actually. That seems like it would be super difficult!
Wow, glad you made it out of that one ok!
Haha I was in the Keys 10 years ago lol, so depends on when you where there. Him finding us was literally like finding a needle in a haystack! Sailing is fun and easy for the most part but its better if you don't have a lake boat in the ocean lesson well learned although my friend still bought my boat
I will do a post and tell you my story...
For now I am just glad that you are OK...
Yay! Excited to hear your story! Whatever it is...I'm glad you're okay too!!
Hello nomadicsoul !! I'm feeling happy that you are ok. I had experienced an accident couple of month back. GOD saved me from severe injure. It was a bike accident. That's why, we should always pray to GOD for saving us any unwanted situation coz we've not enough courage to face those situations.
You are so right! Glad you're okay!
my only scooter crash was in Bali. I though the truck in front of me was turning left but instead it was turning right. so i tried passing it on the right and clipped my mirror enough to knock me off balance. Good thing I was going slow but I still got some skin taken off.
And I'm really glad you're ok. a lot of tourists get seriously hurt in accidents over there.
I know! Apparently at least 1 person dies a week. I know someone died a few buildings over from where I stay last month
Omg that's so scary! Good thing that's all that happened! I could see that going down so much worse. You got your motorbike stolen in...Lombok or somewhere, right?
Yeah, that happened.
NINJA!
Ah, glad you do have amazing reflexes... it really does drive me crazy when people just justify their actions 'yeah, I was really impatient so I just did what I wanted to do'... okay, sure, that's fair.
Anyways, GOOD JOB OF SURVIVING! 10/10.
lol! That's what I do! Been surviving every day since I was born!
Lol! That's what I do!
Been surviving every
Day since I was born!
- nomadicsoul
I'm a bot. I detect haiku.
I demand this be printed into a t-shirt!
;lj
omg that's super crazy!!!! Glad you're ok! And that you won! That part is kinda cool at least
Great. Very good
thanks lol
Wow.......you had a very lucky esacpe @nomadicsoul Thank goodness you have excellent reflexes but it must have made you particularly cautious when you ventured out after that. We can't predict what some crazy drivers will do.
It is interesting to read about how shock effects us at times. You had enough adrenaline rushing through your system to get you to move quickly out of the way of danger but seconds later you were frozen and unable to respond to what was happening around you. Hopefully you are now fully recovered.