Three becomes two! A Tuk Tuk Tale!

August 15th, 2010

Three became two on a recent trip to the hospital. Not once but twice. Sunday mornings had followed the same routine for a few weeks - treatment for another leg injury!
A tuk tuk, a vehicle with three wheels, had been our mode of transport during this time.

Photo - Flash. A Tuk Tuk that didn’t fare so well!

Three of us had been experiencing the weekly trips - all of us sustaining leg injuries. Two through surfing and one through cricket, but all surfers. The three included Sri Lanka’s top two surfers, Asanka and Milan, along with the elderly statesman, me!
It was Poyet, a Buddhist holiday. A day when no animals, fish or living creature is killed intentionally. A day when one normally only eats vegetables - not even an egg is boiled! So, maybe the two meter long snake was aware of this, and felt more than confident that it was safe to cross the road!

The driver of the tuk tuk braked violently to avoid hitting the reptile. Unfortunately he swerved at the same time, which saw the tuk tuk first bank to the right on two wheels, and then to the left! So the three wheeler became a two wheeler! It was happening so fast, but also appeared to be in slow motion. I was sure we were going over, and that the incident would see us all in hospital with further injuries, or worse! I could see that one of us was going to be thrown from the three wheeler and seriously injured. I was in the middle so was sure i would come off with the least injuries. First i thought it would be Asanka thrown out, and then when the weight was thrown the other way, it would be Milan. I had visions of Milan being crushed under the tuk tuk, of thoughts of the headlines in the newspaper, of Sri Lanka losing one of it’s finest young surfing talents. It appeared that each time we banked over we were at 45 degrees. All of us holding on, and instinctively distributing our body weight. The saving grace appeared to be Milan, who stuck his left leg out and using his bare foot, somehow had the instinct to force his foot onto the carpet road and provide us with the leverage we needed to right the tuk tuk.
The snake appeared to be oblivious to our experience, and the excitement it had caused, and just slithered off into the jungle. It’s identitiy unknown, probably a python.
We, on the other hand, were all high on adrenaline, fired up and chat, chat, chat! It appeared that the driver was more concerned in not hitting the snake because of it being Poyet, than thinking of his passengers, that he could have inadvertently killed through his actions!! Pissu! Lol!

Entry Filed under: Sri Lanka 2010, Tim's Travels