July 2nd, 2015
Laos’s commitment to the environment
So it really jumped out at me yesterday morning as I sat on my patio watching the world go by on foot and bicycle, and all the gas guzzling ways like motorbike, scooter, car, truck, minivan, tuk tuk, etc etc. There are many ways to get around and I am mostly used to the level of noise that these things create. It just becomes the backdrop here. Then a whisper quiet little yellow and green pod thing whisked by and I thought I imagined it. Then a while later, another one whooshed by. The only noise they made was the sound of the tire rubber on the road. Just like a Prius. So you can imagine this caught my attention. But not so much that I would perform superman like moves to jump over the rail of my patio to chase it down the street or anything. That would require effort. Ha ha. So then in the afternoon when we were walking about, I saw one, I whipped out my camera and snapped some pictures to prove more to myself than anything I wasn’t imagining it.
So we are walking along and turn back down the road that will follow the Mekong and what do we see but this sign….
Holy crow, it’s a THING! A legit thing! I don’t know who sponsors it, but 3,000 kip is like 40 cents. How great is this? A circle tour of the town for fourty cents?? It’s an E-Car. I love it. So I may not have mentioned this but Luang Prabang (or at least part of it-the part we like) is a world heritage site. You can tell….it’s differrent. It’s like being inside the old city in Chiang Mai. Anyway, we (I) decide this is a must do. So according to the schedule, it should come along every 30 minutes. So we continue to walk the loop (the same loop we were going to walk anyway) and we see it several times, but never by a stop (although Troy assures me I could prolly catch it anywhere-I sort of want to play by the rules and catch it at a stop)(yes Angie M, we are both rules followers☺️). But what becomes apparent is that it is not on the schedule indicated on the sign. I have proof positive of this, but I’ll get to that later. No time that we see the E car does it ever have a passenger in it. And we saw it probably four times on the loop? It just whooshes past us, like a breath, very space age….hard to describe but it’s so out of place here. I am going to have to look this up on the internet and see what it is all about, and if anyone else is blogging about it. Maybe a travel forum is discussing it?
So we get back to the room, water up and I decide to go check it out, the route passes right by our hotel and according to the sign, there is a stop right down the street from us. My travel companion decides to let me try this one on my own. I don’t think he is quite as fascinated by this as I am. It is about 3:30 and I feel like it runs until about 5:30 (according to the sign?) so I’ve got time. So I go in search of my stop, as I’m walking to it, one passes me, aargh, will I have to wait 30 minutes I wonder! I note the time, 3:34. By the time I get to my stop it is 3:35. But the time on the sign says stop 5 has a schedule time of 3:44. So wait….if it runs every 30 minutes as the schedule indicates, it should either come by in 10 minutes like the schedule says, or in 28 minutes bcz one just passed. Well either way I’m going to sit and wait. What’s the difference between sitting on my patio watching the world and sitting on the side of the road watching the world 😉 well I can think of a few, but regardless, I sit down with my 3,000 kip clutched in my hand and wait. Traditional tuks tuks slow as they pass me and cry out (as they are inclined to do) TUK TUK?? TUK TUK?? I wave them on, determined to have my E-Car experience. Well sure enough I wait no more than 10 or 15 minutes and a little yellow and green pod slows to a crawl and the fellow inside is looking at me with either a confused look or skeptical of something. I think he was like holy cow, might I actually have a customer??? I leap up with such enthusiasm, he smiles and I say “can I ride?” With my money extended, he takes my money, waves me on and OFF WE GO. I took a selfie, although I’m so bad at selfies, but I had to record this.
So the trip was fantastic, open car, nice little breeze, out of the sun, and I felt great about my epic carbon toeprint. But it was a bit like riding in a fish bowl. A LOT of stares (and I choose to believe) smiles. Not sure if this was because the whole thing is still so new it attracts stares no matter what, or if they were all just laughing at the fact that the dude finally had a customer. Not sure if the E-Car is the cool new thing, or if the other tuk tuk drivers make fun of the poor guy who has to drive the E-Car. Like HE is the loser. It definitely is as new a concept as possibly can be, as the plastic was still on the seats and the car was mint condition. But I thought it was nifty…but I’m a simple girl.
When I got back to the room, Troy was like “did you do it?” And I was like “YA!! And it was awesome and we are totally doing it AGAIN-TOGETHER” He smiled 😄
