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Tuk TukTuk Tuk
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Subjects > World > Countries?Create > Thailand
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Tuk-Tuk were first seen in Bangkok Thailand in 1871 when a wealthy Chinese resident presented the first rickshaw to King Rama V. This new vehicle instantly caught on with ordinary residents tired of coping with the city's muddy, narrow lanes. While the rich could afford the horse-drawn buggies, common people liked the rickshaw. Within the space of a single generation, rickshaws had multiplied to such an extent that in 1901 the Thai government had to pass an ordinance which limited the number in the interests of preserving public safety.
A more comfortable, and somewhat less humanly demeaning, form of transport later appeared in the form of the pedicab, or samlor—-- literally "three wheels". The driver sat astride a bicycle, while the passenger (often several at a time) sat behind under a collapsible canvas roof that could be fitted with side panels during a rainstorm; a jingling bell served for a horn and sounded almost continuously as the jaunty little contraptions wove their way through the increasing congestion caused by automobiles buses and trucks.
The samlor, too, was doomed, finally outlawed in the late 1950's as a traffic hazard; most of their highly individualistic drivers, spurning offers of official assistance, went off to more leisurely provincial cities where they still continue to operate.
The ultimate successor is the tuk-tuk, a sort of motorized samlor that some regard as a potentially lethal tin can on wheels and others as virtually a symbol of Bangkok. (In the latter guise it has appeared as a popular toy and at various shows organized abroad by the tourist industry.) Tuk-tuk drivers, almost all of them northeasterners who have come to the capital in search of a better life, are just as independentminded as the old samlor operators and usually just as cheerful, in spite of the dangers they face almost daily on the city streets.
So far, despite several attempts to remove them, the tuk-tuk continues to be popular in the capital of Thailand. Perhaps it is its symbolic status; or maybe the fact that six mediumsized schoolboys or a plump lady trying to carry several live pigs to market could not possibly fit on one of the motorcycle taxis that are now beginning to offer competition.
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