Crashing Motorbikes In China

Today whilst riding my friends Motor scooter to work(I borrowed it as he took a holiday in America)I managed to deftly crash it on the wet roads.
In China the roads can be apalling, every year they work on the same roads they did the year before due to the general bad state of them. It comes down to the fact that someone somewhere down the line is getting back handers out of the work contracts and also the fact that the correct amounts of materials arn't used as someone is usually skimming off the top. It's common to see a pavement being put down all nice and the next day see it cave in as it hasn't been done properly.

However it wasn't exactly the road that was my problem today, it was one of the man hole covers that had subsided which was the main problem. trying to avoid an oncoming car and then trying to avoidng the subsided drain I failed to appreciate the fact that it was also wet and the wheels slid...and so did I. The damage to the bike was fairly minimal but i got a deep gash filled with dirt on my elbow with blood pouring out(and the dirt in china is dirtier than in most countries). Crashing outside a large hairdressers the girls ran out and started fussing over me, a little worrying bearing in mind that in china prostitutes and hairdressers go together(sometimes). Well I wasn't exactly in the mood for a 'special massage' and so politely declined their offer for me to wash inside.

Getting to the school I was quite the attention grabber(blood and dirt usualy has that effect)and proceeded to attempt to clean my wound. I decided cleaning it was relativly pointless as I just couldn't get the dirt out so asked to cancel my class as I looked like a right state. My boss on the other hand had other ideas "please just do the class, the students are already here", I asked her if she really thought it was appropriate what with blood and dirt all over me, but it seemed it was, no consideration that I needed to clean the wound or my arm might fall off in the future, just "do the class".

Not wanting my arm to fall off I declined the offer and went downstairs where there was a small clinic and a kind Chinese nurse cleaned it for free. No doubt I will have to make up that class another time, perhaps when I crash a car. I also hope my friend likes his bike with more 'character' when he comes back.