Tourists riding tuk-tuk to tour Cambodia's Angkor Wat temple.Weekly Times Snow
September 24, 2010
WITHOUT doubt the biggest delight in Asian transport has been the "tuk tuk".
We were jumped as a group by a little mob of blokes outside the Cambodian airport intent on undercutting each other to avail us of their charming vehicles.
They are basically a tiny canopied wagon of four seats attached by a pivot to a mount just behind the rider's seat on a modest motorbike.
While perfectly reasonable and affordable to spread four big blokes and our luggage across two of these, for hilarity's sake we insisted on getting just one and so began my first foray into Asian traffic.
Cambodia is a flat place, it is mainly river flats that didn't exist 5000 years ago, so the 125cc bike managed to pull us without more drama than a pause half way to squirt water on the struggling engine.
I was a bit apologetic about this until I noticed all the tuk tuks have a container with a hose running down just for the purpose.
The velocity of these things is generally non-fatal and I like to think of it as armchair-speed, the ideal pace for curious observation of a new country, just fast enough to keep ahead of the beggars and street-hawkers.
The perfectly cheerful designated-driver to trundle you back to base, a little merry, from a long, tropical evening bash. Willy Wonka would have loved them.
I had a rather romantic image of Vietnamese transport consisting of little coolie-hatted blokes on "cyclos", pedal-powered rickshaws.
My dreams were dashed by about five million motor-scooters. There is the odd taxi in which you can drift slowly as on a raft in the sea of motorbikes or, for a few bob, you can jump on the back of one of them, an offer I easily resisted.
Then, late one night in Saigon, I spotted a cyclo treadling sadly around.
They appear to be merely curiosities now, only driven by old blokes who may well be heritage-listed themselves. Two of us merrily jumped aboard and requested a slow tour anywhere.
After 10 minutes he pulled over on what passed as a boulevard, jumped off and started coughing.
Then we noticed the bright blood he spat on the ground. And more and more. Tuberculosis I presume. I stared into his pallid face. In guilty horror I gave him all the money I had. "Go home," I said.
"Go home."
We were jumped as a group by a little mob of blokes outside the Cambodian airport intent on undercutting each other to avail us of their charming vehicles.
They are basically a tiny canopied wagon of four seats attached by a pivot to a mount just behind the rider's seat on a modest motorbike.
While perfectly reasonable and affordable to spread four big blokes and our luggage across two of these, for hilarity's sake we insisted on getting just one and so began my first foray into Asian traffic.
Cambodia is a flat place, it is mainly river flats that didn't exist 5000 years ago, so the 125cc bike managed to pull us without more drama than a pause half way to squirt water on the struggling engine.
I was a bit apologetic about this until I noticed all the tuk tuks have a container with a hose running down just for the purpose.
The velocity of these things is generally non-fatal and I like to think of it as armchair-speed, the ideal pace for curious observation of a new country, just fast enough to keep ahead of the beggars and street-hawkers.
The perfectly cheerful designated-driver to trundle you back to base, a little merry, from a long, tropical evening bash. Willy Wonka would have loved them.
I had a rather romantic image of Vietnamese transport consisting of little coolie-hatted blokes on "cyclos", pedal-powered rickshaws.
My dreams were dashed by about five million motor-scooters. There is the odd taxi in which you can drift slowly as on a raft in the sea of motorbikes or, for a few bob, you can jump on the back of one of them, an offer I easily resisted.
Then, late one night in Saigon, I spotted a cyclo treadling sadly around.
They appear to be merely curiosities now, only driven by old blokes who may well be heritage-listed themselves. Two of us merrily jumped aboard and requested a slow tour anywhere.
After 10 minutes he pulled over on what passed as a boulevard, jumped off and started coughing.
Then we noticed the bright blood he spat on the ground. And more and more. Tuberculosis I presume. I stared into his pallid face. In guilty horror I gave him all the money I had. "Go home," I said.
"Go home."
3 comments:
My foreign friends,
Just want to bring to your attention that these comfy chariots are NOT tuk tuk. They are Khmer romeok. The original romeok has a bit shorter chassis, lower cushion bench seats, and no roof. This modernized romeok has taller seats for stadium view and open airness, stretched chassis for more legroom and luggage spaces, and of course the shady and comfy roof with all around rain curtains for protections. So again they are not tuk tuk. They are Khmer ROMEOK.
Khmer Romeok Driver,
this dude must be one very confused tourist. At the same time sounds very condescending too.
It seem that our foreign friend visited Thailand before he visited Cambodia. Thai call that vehicle "tuk tuk", Cambodian call it " romeok or lameok". Anyway, lameok is a fun little vehicle to be riding on. If you're sightseeing around the temples, this vehicle would be a perfect choice. To be riding on those fancy vehicles such as Lexus or Toyota SUV might give you the most comfortable seats and have cool air-condition blowing at your feet but they would't give you the kind of panoramic view and a natural wind blowing in your face as being on lameok.
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