As I wrote before, Asians have completely different standards. I mean – ‘standards’! No more words – just photos.

Workers in trucks

It’s never too many!

Passengers on a bike – too many school buddies!

When you’re too tired

As motorcycle is the most popular vehicle in Thailand, Thais use it for everything: for transportation of the whole family, including dogs and children; for sitting and eating; as a portable kitchen and a beverage shop. And, of course, they use it for carrying big luggages and freights. As Davidfl, member of GT-Rider.com and author of next 2 photos, said:

“But aint Thailand a great country though – who needs a 6-wheel truck or pick-up when you can carry all your building supplies on a Honda Dream!”

Two tables for street cafeteria – an everyday picture on Thai streets

All you need to cook anywhere – kitchenware and even charcoal pots

A woven basket for everything. Looks futuristic, isn’t it?

Some plasma-TV sized box. Of course, it isn’t plasma TV which is too expensive for these youngsters

Spices and small vegetables mobile shop. Thais like small plastic packets!

Woven basket again.

Ice-cream. BTW, it’s a very popular design of delivery box among big brands

He is a window glass repairman. I don’t want to imagine what would happend to his buisiness if that one felt off…

If you suddenly drop your bike or unfortunately get into an accident, your bike’s beautiful body gets ugly scratches. What Western owner will do? He will come to repair shop, pay money, order new plastic parts. Another, maybe, more expensive way is to change a color of parts.

But what will Thai, or another Asian guy with 20 baht (less, than $1) in pocket do? Look at pictures:

Got ugly scratches?

Btw – our bike on photos, but we don’t care about scratches.

Go to the closest local market and buy those strange “Bullet hole” stikers, 20฿ per sheet

Place stickers over scratches, holes, spots. Get new, gangsta style bike!

I found a very helpful and well-made website about life in Thailand – Freebeerforyorky. For us, motorcyclists, more interesting part is “Driving in Rural Thailand”. Yorky, the author of named after website, allowed me to republish typical manoeuvers, which Thai drivers use everyday. For Western drivers, who can lose driving license after 1 mistake, some of this manoeuvers seem funny, some – stupid, some – dangerous. But relaxed, polite and tolerant Thais live in this traffic Babylon for years.

“Shortest path between two points is a straight line”

“Cars are slower than motorcycles, anyway”

“It’s enough that I turned neatly during the driving courses”

“No-no, on a motorcycle you can easily bypass all oncoming cars”

“The shortest path between two points is a straight line-2”

“My 10 amulets and everyday prayer to Budha will help me to not to be smashed on that concrete dividing wall”

“I’d better spend 5 mins to cheating traffic light rather than wait 1 min for green”

“Left lane, right lane, stop puzzle me! I have a faster engine, period.”

When we just arrived in Thailand, we thought “Thai scoots are cool, but when you go to shopping cars are better”. One time I even tried brave deed: took box with big multifunction printer by scooter. Box stood between me and handlebar and interfered with driving process.

But now, after several years I learnt some tricks and can say: With your funny small scooter you can carry more luggage than you can imagine. I can number 7 places:

0. Front basket

No front baskets! Firstly, they look lame and cheap. Secondly, they break bike aerodynamics. Finally, they’re not secure.

1. Place under a saddle

Some big scooters, like Yamaha Nuovo, Honda Airblade (models positioned like bikes for men) have quite wide place under a saddle. You can keep  first aid kit, docs, tools and 5 killos of fruits there. Smaller bikes made for women like Yamaha Mio, Honda Click have very small space for keeping something bigger than a first aid kit box.

2. Standart hook

Old good hook, a quick and useful solution for markets, especially in Thailand where every product put into a separate packet. Amount of luggage limited only your ability to spread your legs.

3. Feet’s place

There you can throw several big and heavy packets or even bags. We carry there, for example, bags with potatoes and tomatoes.

4. Additional hook

If  one hook is not enough for you – buy and install the second, usually scooters have hole for it.

5. Passenger place

If you haven’t a passenger you have a tasty place for carrying very big objects. All you need is to buy 2-3 special ellastic luggage ropes to fasten your luggage. My track records: I carried 2 big speakers and subwoofer, also I carried not heavy but big plastic cabinet.

6. Luggage box

Luggage boxes cost about 100 dollars in Thailand. They ‘re useful if you have a scooter with small space under a saddle, but want to keep safe important papers or expensive things in your bike. Also luggage boxes are useful for long trips by same reasons.

7. Mirrors’ stands

The last chance. Before I peep this trick doing by women from local market, I used handlebar’s grips. But it wasn’t so good, packets interfered with bike control. Using mirror’s stands as luggage hooks a bit secure and useful.

Several photos

I brought 3.1 acoustic system to secondhand shop:

Woman from local market covered a whole motorbike by packets with greens, vegetables and fruits. She used places number 5 and 7:

Very good DIY idea: use two special hooks for carrying bunch of packets with luggage:

Picture for atmosphere only. Woman with big amount of luggage prefer to use samlo – Thai tricycle rickshaw: