Motorbike Journey trough Fear to Freedom in Asia | by Liza Piaf
Halfway into the journey, another predator appeared — a massive bus devouring its lane and hungrily reaching for mine.
I decided to give way, but not slow down. My mind was intoxicated by my own boldness.
We were side by side when, suddenly — as if someone had yanked the spine out of me — I felt my strength vanish. The bike slid to the shoulder. The moment my wheels touched the loose edge, the machine stopped being mine. It bucked, leapt, and threw itself forward.
Fear wrapped around my body like a heavy cocoon, but my mind was suddenly still, stripped of all its usual doubts.
In that elongated ten-second flight, I imagined how my body would look on the road — and the image was disturbingly calm.
When my skin finally met the asphalt, I felt no pain. Only relief. The crash wasn’t over — a flip, a slide on bare legs alongside the bike, and again… relief.
When I stopped, the nose of an old Volkswagen loomed just a meter away. In that moment, I realized I had never feared death — only the sight of my own bone.
My shoes were broken, my legs and shoulder torn, but they already felt less like mine. I didn’t yet know how much I would come to love these scars — as proof of courage and a strength I could never trade for anything.
For fifteen minutes, I wrestled with myself, with the thick air, with the phantom of that bus — cleaning my wounds, bargaining with fear, teaching my body to accept one simple truth: I would have to get back on the bike. Ahead lay four hours of road. I knew that if I turned back, the whole journey would lose its meaning. I chose forward.
The locals warned me against the night road through the jungle, where wild animals roamed. “If you meet one — turn off your high beams, ride slow,” they said.
I rode on, into the green tunnel that swallowed my light. Fear pulled the strings of my hands and feet as they clutched at the brakes. The headlight painted the jungle alive, breathing, and for moments I felt I was falling down a rabbit hole, unsure where reality ended and dreams began.
And then the tunnel broke open. A wide savanna under a swollen yellow moon.
On the opposite lane stood the giant of the jungle. A wild elephant — calm, immovable, timeless. It felt like a pure dream.
I dimmed my light, eased the throttle. My heart was on the verge of leaping from my chest. And yet as soon as we were side by side, a sharper wave of fear struck me — the elephant turned in my direction and swept his trunk above me. I barely had time to realise the danger before I was already passing beneath his massive body.
