Sepak takraw (Malay: sepak raga; Tamil: “செபக் தக்ரா” or “கால் கட்டைப்பந்தட்டம்”; Thai: ตะกร้อ, RTGS: takro; Lao: “ka-taw”; Filipino: “sipa”; Vietnamese: “cầu mây”), or kick volleyball, is a sport native to the Malay-Thai Peninsula.

Look, what hides behind this boring description. Looks like a martial arts kicks!

via ssedov

What is samlo? It’s an ancient weapon of Asians, which they use to try your patience. Peaceful and very healthy looking driver of this instrument of torture will slowly ride in front of your new Honda Civic till you start screaming, beeping and blaming that honorable man. In this case some of Thais will raise his finger and say “Ohh, stupid farangs are so stupid.”

Thailand

Vietnam

Bangladesh

India

Everybody likes tuk-tuks! Who can argue with that? In all countries the first thing we discover is a public transport. Most likely, we will use tuk-tuks, because they are the cheapest and most exotic way to get somewhere inside a city (some tuk-tuks offer trips even outside cities, for example, you can easily hire Cambodian tuk-tuk for daily trip to Angkor Wat complex). Usualy tuk-tuks are the icon of their own country. That’s why I decided to show you tuk-tuks from around the world (from 11 countries, exactly). Enjoy! If you like to read texts – check out history of tuk-tuks in Wikipedia.

Kenyan tuk-tuk

Indian auto rickshaws

CNG or Baby Taxi of Bangladesh

Guatemala’s tuk-tuk

Cambodian motorcycle tuk-tuks

Traysikel or traysikol of Philippines

Coco taxis in Cuba

Three-wheelers of Sri Lanka

Indonesian Bajaj

Rickshah of Pakistan

One of not numerous Vietnamese Tuk-tuk

Thais have King and Buddhism, and officially they are symbols of Thailand. But, anybody, who been in Thailand, agrees the real symbol is small, noisy vehicle riding in smelling clouds of exhaust pollutions. That vehicles produced locally by small producers. That’s why vehicles look so home-made. In most of modifications producers use parts of factory produced motorcycles and pickups. Some of them really are modified motorcycles and pickups. They are technically imperfect, they heat environment, they are uncomfortable. But – they are amazing and authentic, and we excuse and enjoy them.

Mainstream Tuk-Tuk (Bangkok and central Thailand, Chiang Mai and Northern Thailand)

You can see it even on t-shirt

Ayuthaya Style: the most authentic Tuk-Tuk

Phuket Style: the most expensive and unfriendly Tuk-Tuk

Krabi Style: the most uncomfortable Tuk-Tuk

Nong Khai Style: the slowest Tuk-Tuk (you can outrun it by fast walk)

Sukhotai Style

Pattaya Style

Thais call it songteow, but tourists who don’t know Tuk-Tuks must be small and 3-wheeled, noising and smelling, call it Tuk-Tuk.

Modern and Luxury Variations

Just Married… and in Tuk-Tuk now!

Police Tuk-Tuk Modification

Tuk-Tuk with political advertising

Tuk-Tuk for stupid tourists

Honda Dax or Trail 70 or Daschund or ST70 – a guy from the Honda minibikes’ family. You can recognize it by a completely different frame with a streight pipe under a seat, a so-called “T-bone”. For me this bike looks a bit awkward. But Dax fans make very interesting mods and customs sometime, so I must show you some photos. Pay attention to ultrawide tires mods

We all know Honda rulez. They made several cult scooters and minibikes – Zoomer, Monkey-Gorilla-Ape, Chaly. They made very useful Wave, Airblade, Click. But, unfortunately, the icon of modern motor-generation was created by Yamaha. It’s the most trendy, most customisable, most different scooter, the Thai answer to Vespa. It’s Yamaha Fino! It’s an amazing vehicle that’s really versatile and it looks fantastic. Whether you’re looking at prices on rac.co.uk for one of these machines or you want to rent one on holiday, you can’t go far wrong. Look at pictures of nice customisations of scooter, I promise to tell you more about Fino in next posts.

P. S. BTW Honda took attempt to made comparable cult scooter without any luck. It was Honda Icon.

Fino – quadrocycle

Square flat front

Military Fino with a sidecar

Fino – fire engine

Fino glamorously encrusted with Swarovski

Fino with metal engravings and carvings

Retro style Fino

Other Finos

Honda Zoomer is a 49cc scooter with a completely out-of-mainstream design. It’s not so popular in Thailand, but still available. You could see photos of this scooter in my “Honda on 30th BKK Motorshow” post. Also you could see one Yamaha Fino tuning, inspired by Zoomer design in “Yamaha: Yes! We are Different!” post. Yep, the design is original but… There are many well designed bikes and scooters in Asia.

But several days ago I surfed on “Chaly Thailand” forum and found a topic about Zoomer tuning culture. It was the most wonderful and outstanding tuning I ever seen! Zoomer’s frame design stimulates to do very long and lowriding scooters. Europeans and Americans, you’ll be happy as Honda Zoomer and tuning parts available in your countries, too (under Ruckus name)!

Asia is the motherland of minimalism. Of course, it has touched motorculture, Asia is full of minibikes. You can see farmers in Cambodia who drives they off-road. You can see housewifes in Japan who go by talking to friends. You can see crazy youngsters in Thailand who shows off with nice or sometimes weird tuned minibikes. The most popular model for tuning here is Honda Chaly, CF50 (which have 49cc engine and 2 or 3 speeds) and CF70 (which have 72cc and 2 speeds). It was released in 1972, currently not in production but, like it happend with old Vespas, secondhand Chalys are still available everywhere in Thailand. So – minibikes’ lovers use this opportunity and actively participate in competition “the weirdest/splendiferous tuned minibike in Thailand”.

Even Police Likes It!

Tip: look, what lays in luggage basket. Thai policemans are so cute!

Lowriders

Weird Tunings

Longest exhaust pipe I ever seen, especially on minibikes!

Other Tunings

What is it? A half of a tractor? A big donut with a frame and an engine? Or some joke from motorcycle manufacturers?

First time I saw these bikes at Burapha Bike Show 2008 (place near Pattaya). There were big crowds of guys with those bikes, most of which were tuned in minimalism style – totally “naked”, long swingarm accenting that a big rear donut, under frame hanged short Supertrapp megaphone muffler. What Asians did with a shy offroad bike! After such tuning a motorbike is good only for showing off in front of girls with risk to fall with buttocks on uncovered rear donut

Enjoy photos, if you’re interested – look at specs of TW200 on official Yamaha website.

Stock design of TW200

How crazy Asians tuning is:

When we just arrived to Thailand, I thought I need nothing but scooter. Yes, I noticed strange small mutant bikes looks like mix of sport and enduro bike. But I thought them to be some unserious toys for strange Asians. And, apropos, first generations of that bikes with their simple green design looks unpleasant.

But after year of living in Thailand I met friend who told me: “I just bought a nice bike and do tuning of it. Guess, you aren’t familiar with this class of bikes, it’s called ‘mini-supermotards’”. It was that strange small bike, Kawasaki KSR. From my friend I learned about big community of KSR-lovers. Barely, I found a motorbike rental with KSRs and took one for a week, to test drive it. Than I understood – it’s my bike and bought the new one.

So, what does KSR represent? Of course, I can copypast specifications here, but you can easily find it on KSR website. I don’t like specifications, because they don’t give understading why this bike is different or why it so popular. So, I’ll try to explain it without parameters and numbers.

It’s mini, but it’s still supermotard

Supermotard – enduro/motorcross mixed with a road racing bike. From a motorcross it has shock absorbers with long wheel travel, frame with high centre of gravity, low weight. From a road bike – fat slick wheels, stronger breaks, optics. So, with motard you can ride public roads, but you have extended abilities: you can jump, ride off-road, you will miss rock and holes on bad roads.

But if you are a novice driver, you may have some problems. Supermotards, like their offroad fellas, are very high. If you not tall enough, your feet will not get ground when you seat on bike. Plus you need to use to switch gears in this condition! And, of course, a big and heavy evil supremotard bike looks frightening for a newbie driver.

As a solution of this problems, the new class of small bikes was created. It’s calls “mini motard” or “mini supermotard”. Kawasaki KSR is the most popular in Japan and Thailand mini motard. Its’ weight is 85 kilos only (Ducati Hypermotard, for example, weigh about 180 kilos), seat height is 750 mm only (Ducati Hypermotard have 845 mm seat height). Of course, KSR has small, 110 cc engine. And it has very good option for newbies – it’s half-automatic. Means, you can switch gears, but you don’t need to care about clutch.

KSR has only one problem – comparing to usual Thai bikes, it’s not so useful for everyday life. Stock bike even hasn’t footsteps for a passenger. Of course, you can equip bike for carrying a passenger or a luggage, but not a passenger and a luggage in the same time! And it’s totally imposible to carry same amount of luggage that Thai scooter is able to carry.

Now you can ask me: “man, if bike not useful – what to do on KSR?”

Fun riding

This is main purpose of my KSR . It’s hard to explain, but this bike gives a completely differend feeling of riding. KSR has own wild character which makes you to do stupid but fun things on roads.

Motorcycle stunt

I’m not a fan of bike stunt, but KSR is the best base to make a stunt bike and then learn how to do tricks. It’s cheap, light and small – a nice combination. There are many KSR stunt clubs in Thailand.

Off-road riding

Change tyres to off-road, install luggage rack and voila – you have an easy to use, cheap and comfortable bike for jungle adventures.

Touring

Touring on KSR is not so comfortable. I passed 750 kms in 3 days and still remember strong pain in my ass. But if you became an enthusiast of KSR, and I can’t persuade you to cancel your 1000 km trip, please, care about purchasing special motorcycle pants – it will save your ass undamaged.

Racing

Yep. There are special racing tournaments among mini motards and among KSRs. Do performance tuning with Takegawa parts and go practice to closest racing circuite!

The main secret

I forgot to say about “small” detail – tuning shops sell enormous, big variety of different, ready to use tuning parts and customisation services. I’ll tell you about the tuning market in next posts.