Sunday, February 8, 2009

Moped Madness










This is the beach drive in downtown Patong. During the day it is relatively busy, but at night you hardly think of it as a road because it is filled with shoppers, sellers, gawkers, and hawkers. They had a sort of community carnival the week that we were there, so every evening there would be live music, an art show, or a procession of some sort.

These photos of mopeds are somewhat manipulated: there was a parade one night and the traffic behind it was help up for a while, so after the last float went through I waded out into the middle of the ‘brummers’ as Edna kept calling them, and took a few photos. Notice how they hardly care that I am standing in the middle of the road?






We rented one every other day, for about $6. One day we splurged and rented two, and I carried the kids while Edna followed and we covered about 80km. Great way to see the island. Cody honestly thought he could count all the mopeds he saw, but even that character in Rain-man couldn’t have kept track of them all; they’re everywhere. You can buy a one litre bottle of Pepsi full of gas from just about anyone on the side of the road for .80 cents and continue on your way; we never stopped at a gas station in 10 days.

High finances, though: I got a$9 fine for not wearing a helmet one night, and Edna was charged $15 for breaking the right hand mirror “clean off” when she dumped her first (and apparently, last) motorbike. Mel, Sid and Rich: you failed your sister by not letting her use your dirt-bikes when you were kids.

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