Scooter Hire

So today we decided to hire scooters after lunch, I’d handed over all my dirty laundry for the trip to date over the day before, so was hoping to get some of it back before we headed out,  but that wasn’t to be so we headed out anyway.  We both requested manual scooters, and after a while of me trying to figure out how to change down gears “the scooters had a separate gear peddle for changing down”  though you could also generally change down with the main gear peddle like i’m used to it just required a lot more effort and apparently also has some limitations, the rear gear peddle while much easier was in a horribly inconvenient position for someone used to changing gears with their toes only.

Once id got this sorted the scooters themselves aren’t really that difficult to ride, I’d never ridden one before but I had ridden a two wheeler motorbike for a short time in my youth. Our first stop, was the local petrol station,  seems the norm is to return the scooters with hardly any fuel in them having no clue how to access the petrol tank of my scooter I was fortunate the fuel attendant did and promptly sorted me out (the fuel tanks accessed under the seat apparently).  Anyhow after my scooter anatomy lesson, me and Mark headed off out of the city and into the country side, on the quiet country roads a quirk of scooter became very apparent, its indicator light had a very annoying accompanying ‘soundtrack’ that made me want to go straight wherever possible “terribly difficult when your following someone else i might add  😉 “.

After about a 30 min ride through the countryside, with a stop or two we found ourselves back in the city “apparently we’d gone in one big loop”  now as anyone who has ridden a two wheeler before will know, it is much easier to ride when you haven’t got to slow down and/or stop all the time at daringly busy intersections, well at one such intersection I came unstuck.

While intending to turn left I missed a gap in the traffic with a poor start, and had too wait for another, (traffic lights really don’t seem to mean much here, it really is a case of giving way to the bigger vehicle), anyways by the time the next gap eventuated I accelerated just a bit to quickly off the mark, and as my intended route was quite a hard left with a surface transition from dirt to loose gravel that I didn’t notice till it was to late, I reasonably promptly toppled my scooter just after having completed my turn.

Fortunately for me both the end point of myself and my scooter where quite away from the road. However I ended up with pretty good grazes to my left ankle, hand and a particularly good one along my left elbow, not only that, but fluke-ily we were only a 5 minute taxi drive away from our hotel, though perhaps the biggest fluke was the fact when we hired the scooters we were told they didn’t offer insurance, so I was liable for all damage I had inflicted on my steed, only there was none, I’m sure a few scratches of paint must have come off but we handed it back so dirty perhaps they never noticed.

I must say these scooters are pretty resilient, I thought for sure I would have at least bent something, especially as the scooter was leaking fuel all over the road while on its side.  ‘turns out that wasn’t a result of my accident though’ , seems my fuel cap either came of while I was riding or the accident shook it loose, so the only loss was a few liters of fuel I wouldn’t have used anyway given i was pretty soon in the back of a taxi with a few days of recovery ahead of  me before i’d being doing anything of this sort again. no photos of injuries, as i wasn’t in the mood  “funny that” and it likely would have disturbed several members of my audience.

We did still head out for dinner like we had every other night despite my injuries “not sure why I didn’t decide to eat in for a change”  guess I wasn’t going to waste my holiday lying in my room.

On this occasion we picked out a random Alley street “where the locals would eat” the puppy with the very short leash below was someones pet.

The Meal was pretty good too, as there was no menu, I thought for sure this meal would be one I couldn’t pallet.After dinner I concluded the night by returning to the coffee place I visited yesterday, to get the coffee drink I thought I was buying the night before.