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Whilst Jackie loves the more aesthetic things of life, which I do too, she writes about it in a much better way than me so I have to find something that is more up my street. Hooters, have hit the forefront here but I hasten to add that they are the car horn type which dominate life in Southern Asia!
As you know, I love cycling and anything to do with it, but I also have a love of motorbikes and cars, so it is fairly natural for me to have taken an interest as we have travelled through Southern Asia over the last two months. Some of the information may also be of interest to any of you thinking about travelling here in the near future.
The transfer from Western Australia to Hong Kong was a bit of a contrast but the common factor was the trams which are in use in both locations. The new regime to us in Hong Kong was the rickshaws and tuk tuks which are great but this was our first introduction and Jackie and I were a bit slow in coming forward on this market. This was because you have to go through a bartering exercise with the driver before you get in and we were not ready for that. We used the MTR (Metro) extensively and were able to use a pre-paid card which made life very easy and convenient.
We move on to Hanoi and this was a real culture shock as the place is just teaming with scooters, mopeds and rickshaw/tuk tuks. It is just chaotic there are no designated road lanes they just drive in the direction they want to go and merge. There are not many cars here and speed is such that they can generally brake for any obstructions and, believe me, there are many. As a pedestrian, crossing any road is a lottery but you just have to keep going in one direction and never ever step backwards. The tuk tuks are, as a lot of you will know, derived from an old scooter chassis with a couple of seats behind the driver and two wheels at the rear but with normal scooter mechanics and handlebar steering at the front. I was never a great scooter fan when I was young but I would think they use an old 125cc two stroke engine, and so, make loads of noise. It was here that we lost our shyness and started to use the transport as the drivers are so persistent that in the end you just state a stupid amount after they have made their bid. This description largely covers all of Vietnam but as you travel south to Ho Chi Minh City you notice a greater presence of both Japanese and Korean cars which just adds to the chaos. Having stated my lack of previous interest in scooters I was nearly converted when we went on a pub crawl on more modern large wheel scooters driven by University students. What a great night! Great food,, beer and company with these young drivers,our friends Thanh and Rob and many of their friends.
Kuala Lumpur is much the same as HCMC but more advanced architecturally with a much bigger proportion of cars but again generally of Japanese and Korean origin.
Move on to Delhi and probably the large proportion of India where there is a pre-dominance of tuk tuks but still of a rudimentary type and most of them in a pretty rubbish condition and they are never cleaned as there is a dire shortage of water in the North of the country. There is a big difference here with the presence of a huge amount of buses which are all colours are very old and only a very few have any windows. All buses appear to be in a pretty poor condition and as you travel around you see running repairs being done on the roadside using a pair of old steel ramps.Who knows where any technicians are sourced from, I think anybody that can hold a spanner just turns up! In Southern India we found out why they are in such a state, as we took a bus to an airport which was about 100kms away. We did this for the experience, and found out before that it would be air-conditioned and with windows, The bus fare was the equivelant of 80p each and the taxi would have been the equivelant of £22! There is an addition here to the Japanese and Korean cars and motorbikes which is a legacy from the old British rule and that is the Morris Isis and the Royal Enfield 350cc Bullet motorbike which you saw a lot of in the UK in the fifties. They are now cult vehicles in India and I believe there are factories in India manufacturing both. There are also many old black or rusty bikes around the streets with either single or Sturmy Archer gears and some with full chaincases, again a feature of Britain after the War.
Sri Lanka has moved on a bit and the old legacy cars and bikes are not so evident. Motorbike wise, the Japanese, as ever, have been quick to cash in on the market as there are many more bikes here than the rest of Asia and the mopeds and scooters are not so evident. These bikes look quite exciting but they still only have single cylinder 250/350cc engines following the style of the engine to the old legacy Royal Enfield but probably rev a bit quicker! Tuk Tuks are still all over the Island and you are still pestered endlessly by the drivers but they are less persistent than in the rest of Asia and back-off when you tell them that you do not want them. The tuk tuks here are very smart and seem to do longer distances travelling between towns and because of this, some have four stroke engines which sound better and yhey also have lots of chrome and much better hoods and appearance. The old black and rusty bike (pictured above) as described earler is massively evident here and they appear to have been handed down from generation to generation, and look like it! It is hard to think that the old rod brakes can be repaired now but probably nothing else works anyway. In all the time that we have been here I have only seen one group of cyclists in Lycra and riding state of the art bikes!
Sunday morning car washing also exists in Sri Lanka but it is not on their drives here! There is a lot of water here due to the mountainous central areas, so they drive out to the local river, lake or waterfall and take their buckets and detergent with them. To make a day of it some also take their washing with them and their shampoo and bathing gear and do a complete cleaning exercise in one go!!
Hooters! If you are coming here you have to get used to them it is a persistent background noise that we are not used to. I would think that the average driver of any vehicle uses his at least every minute and the volume of traffic is enormous, They use it to warn they are close, overtaking, for any pedestrian close to the road edge, to thank anybody for allowing them to overtake, to warn oncoming traffic that they are going to drive you off the road when they overtake and, it would appear, just to draw attention to themselves!
Sorry to bore you all with technical detail but it is intriguing to compare the way transport has developed and operates in this area. I hope that you are all well and it is hard to realise that in less than three weeks we will be briefly back in the UK. I don't think our ongoing trip around Europe will be so revealing, but, who knows, it could be more??Thanks for reading.
- comments
Kate I am reading this in bed Jeff you have given me all sorts of pictures of you and Jackie there. Looking forward to seeing you soon. X
Dianne Being a mechanic must be a good career choice I should think.
Steve I enjoyed this overview of travel in the places you've been. I hope you enjoy your European travels as much as you appear to have enjoyed the rest of the world.