Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Save our world and think green: Human power vehicles





http://reducefootprints.blogspot.com/

http://workofthepoet.blogspot.com

When I was young in Sibu, Borneo, my siblings and I would not be seen dead in one of these trishaws. My great grand mother aka Ah Tai, when she saw us walking, pitied us, and kept telling us to hop aboard, and we would walk faster away from her, hoping nobody saw us.

Now, trishaws are a tourist thing. In Singapore they go in batches of 20 trishaws going to tourist places. In this picture, taken at the Mulu resort, porters transfer luggages to the chalets. Some kids think it's cool to ride in one. In Auckland, it is also a tourist thing.

A fellow blogger in Europe tells me that these rickshaws are free as they are sponsored by the advertisers. On Sunday, I saw one of these and he had lots of advertisements on his trishaw but he was charging people.

Trishaws should be used more often since they do not have any carbon footprint and tourists get to see the sights slowly and in detail.

5 comments:

Barry said...

That's a great idea. We have a few rickshaws here in Toronto. They wait outside the theartres ready to take the tourists back to their hotel. And they're sure not free, they charge about twice what you'd pay a cab for the same distance.

But no trishaws.

wenn said...

i remembered i had a trishaw ride when i was in beijing last time..

Jay said...

trishaw is still available in sibu. Not more than three i suppose. can be seen infront of sentral market.

Elaine Yim said...

When I was a kid, I really love to ride the trishaws. By then it was already a dying trade and you can only find it in certain cities. Now it is only found at tourist places.

Cheryl said...

We don't have those here but they could be used here in the spring and summer. What a wonderful idea, and how green is that? I know our biggest city started a program where one could pick a bike from a rack, ride it where necessary and then return it afterwards. We all do need to keep working on this!