The Tuk-Tuk Story: (or How to pull the wool over everyone's eyes!)
by F Keating
Chiang Mai, April 1999.

At Kuhn Korn waterfall, near Chiang Rai - Frank Quinn, Brian Duncan, F Keating.

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I have known Brian and Lek since the early 90's, when Brian got me involved with leisure cycling and Blazing Saddles - the fund raising arm of the National Council of the Blind in Ireland. Brian and Lek had been involved in Blazing Saddles for a number of years - Lek working on the catering team, and Brian cycling.

In 1999, Blazing Saddles travelled to Thailand for a 2 week cycling challenge. The Duncan family took the opportunity for all the family to visit the land of their mother's birth and to catch up with relations. This would have been my first real contact with their children.

Genevieve, Cyril, Garmon and Pamela on Blazing Saddles 'Amazing Thailand' Cycling trip.

While based in Chiang Mai for a number of days, an unusual thing happened!! One of the mornings, Garmon and Cyril appeared definitely looking the worse for wear, in fact they were sporting a number of bad looking injuries and bruises. The boys explained all - they had been out the night before in the town, and had taken a tuk-tuk back to the hotel (for those who don't know -the cheapest and most exciting form of public transport in Thailand is the 3 wheeled scooter called a tuk-tuk - see picture above). According to their story, they were just so drunk they managed to fall out! Everyone was amazed that they had managed to escape so lightly with just the cuts and bruises. They didn't even need to go to the hospital :-) In fact for the rest of the trip, the two lads got great sympathy (and probably a few drinks) from the entire Blazing Saddles group. The story went down in Blazing Saddles folklore - 'The Boys that fell out of the Tuk-Tuk'.

..........................................

Fast forward a few years ... all the way to Garmon's wedding in Thailand in May 2007! The two lads decided to come clean about the tuk-tuk incident.

They had NOT fallen out of a tuk-tuk. They did indeed get blind drunk, got back to their hotel room ..... and then got into a row with other. They laced into each other in an almighty row. They fought like cats and dogs, fists flying. Their cuts and bruises were all self inflicted! Thanks to the intervention of the 'firemen' (Dave Mc Evoy, Ducksie Kelly and probably Tom Kelly) they were finally separated and calmed down. Between the lot of them they came up with the story of falling out of the tuk-tuk, and what a good one it turned out to be, totally believeable and accepted by everyone ... for 8 years!!

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