T A B L E_T A L K Learning Spanish in South America: Weigh in on the best places to study in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk R E C E N T L Y How Europe changed my life By Hank Hyena A summer odyssey affects a young Republican in the most unexpected way (10/21/98) Rights of passion By Leah Kohlenberg Contrary to popular lore, sometimes casual sex is just what a woman traveler wants (10/20/98) Going native in Mongolia By Julie Vallone A horseback journey across the Mongolian steppes becomes an odyssey through time (10/18/98) Señor Gringo By Maxine Schur An innocent encounter turns crazy for two travelers and a heartbroken, gun-toting Mexican sheriff (10/16/98) This week in travel Wanderlust's selective guide to travel-related news (10/16/98) Browse the Wanderlust Passages archives S A L O N E M P O R I U M FREE! 12-ounce bag of Salon Blend with a purchase of $30 or more. While supplies last.		{ c   h   a   s   i   n   g   R   i   c   k   s   h   a   w   s }__ _a portfolio of photographs _______OF PEOPLE-POWERED TRANSPORT IN 12 ASIAN CITIES. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - E X C E R P T : CHASING RICKSHAWS | BY TONY WHEELER | PHOTOS BY RICHARD I' ANSON | LONELY PLANET | 190 PAGES BY TONY WHEELER | Born in Japan as the "man-powered vehicle" or jinrikisha, the rickshaw later metamorphosed into the cycle-rickshaw and in parts of Asia is still the true developing-world taxicab. Despite government opposition and competition for road space from faster motorized traffic, the cycle-rickshaw is still an enormously popular form of transport. Cycle-rickshaws are non-polluting, create employment at a relatively low cost and ideally fit the scale and traffic patterns of many Asian cities. Also known as trishaws, sidecars, pedicabs, cyclos, becaks and a host of other local names, the cycle-rickshaw is much more than just a means of transportation. The 12 Asian cities visited in this book cover the whole spectrum of the rickshaw and cycle-rickshaw story. In Beijing they disappeared during the Cultural Revolution, only to reappear in the 1980s. In Penang the riders are old and fading, while in Manila they're often teenagers dreaming of moving on to jeepney driving. In Dhaka the cycle-rickshaws are both everyday transport and moving art galleries. In Singapore they're disappearing as day-to-day transport but simultaneously being reborn as tourist attractions. In Hong Kong they're both city icon and endangered species. Not only does the rickshaw's position in the transport mix vary from city to city, the riders and other rickshaw people are an equally mixed bunch. But they all have stories to tell. In our Asian travels we met with riders, owners, administrators, repairers, manufacturers and, of course, passengers. In Beijing we were lectured on how good rickshaw riding was for the health, in Calcutta we visited rickshaw pullers' dormitories and in Dhaka we talked to the artists who paint and decorate the region's most dramatically colorful rickshaws. In Hanoi we tracked down a scrap yard where confiscated rickshaws awaited their fate and in Penang we met with the city official who put riders through their riding test. Our favorite passengers were, without doubt, the schoolchildren who, in city after city, pile into rickshaws to ride to and from school each day. In two cities, Beijing and Manila, we encountered women riders (that is, pedalers). Encouragingly, neither of them had experienced any difficulty breaking into an overwhelmingly male occupation. The rickshaw designs are as widely variable as their riders. Hong Kong still has a handful of the old hand-pulled rickshaws and Calcutta is the only city on earth where they are still used as everyday transport. In the other cities, the rickshaw, a creation of the 1880s, gave birth to the cycle-rickshaw during the 1930s and 1940s, but no standard pattern developed for this new-fangled device. In Manila, Rangoon and Singapore, the cycle-rickshaws are standard bicycles with attached sidecars. The Manila versions with their mini-bikes and youthful riders look like a toytown model, while in Rangoon the passengers ride back-to-back. In Agra, Beijing, Dhaka and Macau, the rider is out front and the passengers sit behind, as if the front part of a bicycle was mated with an old hand-pulled rickshaw. In Hanoi, Penang and Yogyakarta, the meeting of bike and rickshaw produced precisely the opposite result, as if the back part of a bicycle had been joined to the old rickshaw seating; as a result, the passengers sit, sometimes frighteningly, out front, watching oncoming traffic hurtling towards them. At some time during our visits to each cycle-rickshaw city, I jumped on board and went for a test ride. Surprisingly, it was not as hard work as it looks, for despite their hefty weight, cycle-rickshaws are generally pretty low geared; as long as the streets are flat, it doesn't take a great effort to roll them along. In Rob Gallagher's exhaustive study of the rickshaw business, "The Rickshaws of Bangladesh," he concludes that although rickshaw riding is hard work, it's not any more arduous than other manual activities, like farming. What I found much more difficult than merely going forward was steering and stopping. N E X T+P A G E | Pedaling into the bushes