Excellent custom plate for a smart fortwo (I checked… they prefer not to capitalize).
Half a car
Unwarranted
Our trusty Honda Stepwgn failed its annual Warrant of Fitness (WOF, which was an unknown term we saw all over the place before we knew what it meant) inspection due to corrosion on one of the cross members that holds the radiator in place. Dang that salty air!
In fairness, the car is 15 + years old and still chugging along great. So, I’m happy to fix a few things and hope we get a few more years out of her.
Texas sized
My brother in law’s Ford Maverick hybrid truck, on the right, is a pretty good-sized vehicle in my view. But everything is relative: when we pulled into Whataburger, it was apparent just where we fit in the overcompensation hierarchy.
The Mystery Mobile
More or less, anyway.
Good enough?
Lately I’ve been thinking about a new car. There’s nothing really wrong with the minivan, but a man my age sometimes imagines himself in an old Triumph, or a new Polestar.
I read recently about a Chinese electric vehicle that supposedly sells for about $5,000. But you’ll not be seeing one in NZ any time soon, because they don’t meet safety standards. Really, it’s more like a glorified golf cart than a serious car. But such a vehicle would be perfect for nearly all the driving we do!
And wait a minute… we let e-scooters and mopeds and those crazy gyro wheels straight of B.C. go on our roads. None of them meet safety standards either… you straps on your helmet and you takes your chances. And even real cars… I mean , if you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know there are plenty of cars on the road held together with #ducttape.
So… when the Stepwgn (yes that’s how they spell it, no I don’t know why, and yes I realize that leaving out the vowels doesn’t make the minivan ‘edgy’) finally gives out one day, what will it be? Something edgy? Or a classic? Or another boring practical car like I’ve had my whole life? Who knows.
Maybe the minivan will last long enough for me to have a fancy golf cart. Or a flitter!
Duct tape
I haven’t seen a duct tape car repair in a while. But they’re still out there.
I got a owie 😢
Who needs duct tape?
Backwards and in heels
The ubiquity of motor scooters in Vietnam means that women often use them to get to work. But office attire isn’t exactly suitable for a lot of scooter seats, and especially for the pillion rider.
We saw this startling scenario fairly often… scooters dodging through traffic, female passengers completely relaxed and engrossed by the phone. Side-saddle.
Footpath? Sidewalk? Parking lot!
I guess it’s a sign of national progress that many people in Vietnam can afford scooters. But the national infrastructure hasn’t caught up, and so there’s approximately no parking lots. Luckily, there are sidewalks.
Pedestrians have to go between, through, and around, frequently stepping into the street. Where they are tooted at by more scooters.
Truckin’
The internet is awash in pictures of overloaded scooters in various places. We were impressed with this guy’s ingenuity and patience as he lashed this scaffolding to his trusty steed.
A few minutes later he came back for some long sections of pipe. He hoisted them on his shoulder and drove away one-handed. What could possibly go wrong?
Human trafficking
There’s no possible way that all these people can get where they’re going without crashing. But they do!!!
Gas station
Most of the vehicles are scooters, and nobody has any spare coin, so most gas purchases are for like 1or 2 liters.
I get around
The modal vehicle in Ubud is a motor scooter, and they are driven with a fearless panache. But this 1960s era Holden Special lives just down the road from our villa and brings its own panache to the party.
This old scoot has scooted its last. It will be absorbed back into the jungle in a few years / decades.
Living Vi-car-iously
That, my friends, is a 1958 Mercedes 220S. It’s a nice-looking car, a model I didn’t know, and it happened to be parked up the street last weekend. We would look very fine, I said to Lee, driving down the road in a car like that.
Hmm, I continued, I wonder what something like that goes for. I mean, just for curiosity.
Well, it turns out there was one for sale by auction on TradeMe, and it further turned out the auction was ending in only a few hours.
When I first saw it, the bid was about $23,000. According to the listing, the for sale car is mostly rented out to bridal parties. The seller said it’s not especially original, not a show quality car at all, but clean and eminently drivable.
I spent the next few hours daydreaming. It was a lot of fun. But, as usual in these flights of automotive fancy, common sense prevailed.
I hope the new owner enjoys it in the years to come as much as I (and the 500+ others who followed this auction) did in those few hours.
Brattleboro Adventure – the Auckland Edition 