Wednesday Weirdness: Scooting Around Thailand

The picture of manhood is a dude in a pink helmet on a Hello Kitty scooter.

Yeah, baby.

On the one hand, maybe the rental agency was having us on. On the other hand, maybe this kind of thing just doesn't seem strange in these parts.

Luckily, having lived for two years in Japan, I'm used to both emasculation and driving on the left. (Though I'm still getting the hang of sitting on the right side of the car when I drive . . .)

On the whole, that little scooter was one of the best deals I've ever landed. It cost about $8.50 per day to rent it, plus another $6 or so to keep it filled up for the week. For each day, that works out to about 2-3 mid-range "taxi" rides.

In Chiang Mai, taxis (and sometimes police cars) look like this.

Add in the freedom of going wherever the heck we wanted at the drop of a hat, and you have a bargain at twice the price. Though I must say Thai traffic patterns leave something to be desired: it definitely got a little hairy from time to time, especially when there were a lot of people on the road. And I don't imagine it was good for me to be sucking down all those exhaust fumes for the better part of a week.

But despite all these drawbacks, by the end of the trip we'd become quite attached to our little bike. I've always threatened to buy a motorbike here in Japan . . .