One of the most common sites you will see in Southeast Asia is a motor scooter. They zip through traffic like water through a tube of rocks. They fly down sidewalks and zoom the wrong way on any street they choose. Scooters sneak up on you and defy any and all traffic laws. These things are the most common form of private transportation because they are cheap, they are fuel efficient, they fit places cars can’t go and scooter drivers pretty much do not have to follow any traffic law known to man. They drive where they want, they park where they want and they go as fast as they want.
Except when it is raining.
The only thing capable of stopping a scooter in it’s tracks is the silky feel of rain. Or the torrential downpour of a thunderstorm. Either way, the gentle mist of a light rain or the raging inundation of an angry monsoon stops these little traffic gnats in their tracks under the nearest form of cover. It’s quite humorous to see these little scooters huddled together as far from the rain as they can get, when so often you see these drivers wheedling their way through traffic jams or sneaking to the front of the line at a stop light. They even drive on sidewalks to take or shortcut or drive the wrong way down a one-way street to avoid a busy intersection. So the satisfaction one feels at seeing these advantageous little vehicles sidelined for even just a few minutes is quite pleasant. Hooray for the moment when it is beneficial to drive a car in Malaysia!
Oh, the motor scooters. In China, they’d fit three or more on a bike, or carry their babies with them. Crazy. Funny that a little rain makes them run for cover in Malaysia 🙂
haha. Yes, they do the same thing here. Entire families scrunch on these things and just tool down the road. It’s pretty comical.