Hat Rin maybe a wonderful beach resort, but I'm not a beach sort of rabbit. So, with a day to kill before my scuba classes could begin, I rented a mini-motorcycle from one of the many rental "agencies." Ordinarily, I have trouble getting vehicle rentals. For some reason, people find stuffed rabbits who ride an oddity and a potential danger. But not here -- My international driver's license was a useless piece of paper, as far as these folks were concerned -- all they wanted was to hold onto my passport, a sort of psychic leash until I came back with the 'cycle. That and 150 baht or about 8 bucks American.

My mission? To get to the Net. On the other side of the island was the main town, Thong Sala, where Phangon Batik offered e-mail and Netscape on an island where the power was only on a night and the road was paved in 1993.

The road to Thong Sala was known as Death Highway before pavement arrived, and the slick new concrete could still be deadly in the rain. Now it was merely marked by a sign, "Dangerous Road, Driving Carefully." Fearless, I pressed onward riding up to the top of the curves and then down through the steep ravines, grateful that few other drivers were on the road. After about an half-hour of fur raising fear, and not a few appeals to the Almighty, I made it through to the other side.

The next leg might have been safer, but I had to take a turn for the worse. Just off the road to Thong Sala was a waterfall, famed throughout the land for it beauty. How could I possibly pass it by?

So I ventured off the beaten path, into the heart of darkness. At first the road was paved, but after a kilometer or two I passed the pavers. They were hard at work on the roadway, trying to turn the rutted dirt of the jungle path into passable terrain. Undounted, I pressed ahead. Alas, here I was to pay for my sins.

Just over the crest of a small hill, the front wheel stuck in a rut while trail started heading down at a sharp angle. It all happened so fast, even in first gear. The next thing I knew I was laying down the bike, and scraping to a halt, finally coming to rest bloodied and beaten by the trail.

In the end I made it to a waterfall, though it didn't turn out to be much of one. Wile my fellow farangs were giving some strange looks to my obviously bleeding wounds, I hiked up the last hundred meters to the base of the falls. After a brief look at the water cascading down the rocks, I turned back, once again on my way to the final destination: Phangan Batik.

By the time my bike pulled up in front of the e-mail/mountain bike rental agency which lay nestled between coconut trees, the wounds had clotted and I was able to stop along the way at a pharmacy, which was a bit dubious to my western eyes, but sold sealed bandages and Bactine to cover the rough spots. Limping, I stepped inside and laid down a cool hundred baht for 15 minutes of the Internet spike into my veins.