Acceptable levels of risk

How does the saying go? “ When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” Scooter transportation is the primary means of conveyance on Koh Tao. You see scooters attached to food carts, delivering ice as a modified pickup truck of sorts, carrying dogs, livestock, and my personal favorite is three adult passengers with the rear person being a woman riding side-saddle in a dress holding a newborn baby. Awesome. The cool thing is that scooter travel is ubiquitous in Third World countries and the risk tolerances appear to be more liberal than in the USA. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I prefer to view it simply as THE thing and try to avoid being a First World risk assessor/judge while traveling abroad. It is one example of something that they do on a daily basis to simply make it all work. Life. Even the use of the horn is different than at home. At home, the horn means , “screw you dude!” Here it is a tool to say, “Hello there. I am on your right side. Thank you. Have a nice day.” Amazing you can say all that in a couple of beeps of the scooter horn. So we ride scooters to the beach. And we triple up. And it is all OK. Don’t limit yourself by doing what someone tells you is OK or not OK. Make your own decisions. Follow your gut. On many occasions, I feel that we have sanitized so much out of our daily lives in the USA, we have forgotten what it is like to live. We get tweaked about people’s choices – their choices! “Oooh look at that person jogging at dawn/dusk without reflective neon green clothing. That is so unsafe!” Seriously?!? Get over it.