Motorbikes around the world

[ro]

Here's an interesting view of the world: it's scaled so the area of each country on the map is proportional to its population:
http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/worldmapper/images/smallpng/2.png (http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/worldmapper/display.php?selected=2)

There are lots of other statistics (http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/worldmapper/textindex/text_index.html) you can view in the same way. This one shows the number of motorbikes and mopeds:
http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/worldmapper/images/smallpng/32.png (http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/worldmapper/display.php?selected=32)
...looks like Thailand (pale yellow) Japan (purple) would be good places to visit - has anyone got any stories to tell of their overseas adventures?

[Thorkill_The_Tall]

Avoid the rush hour in Hanoi...........

http://img109.imageshack.us/i/vietnamhanoirushhour.mp4/

[FJ_Biker]

Ro wrote

has anyone got any stories to tell of their overseas adventures?

I have travelled some of these countries in south East Asia shown in large scale on the maps not to long ago.

I think India is an eye opener for the most diverse forms of transport on the road and the lack of respect for rules.

http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q101/FJ_Biker/wb1/03-00064-India-Darjeeling-Enfield.jpg
A police bike in Darjeeling

I did pop into an Enfield dealers in Calculator, What a posh place. I never saw a bike bigger than an Enfield in India

Thailand did not have that many large bikes, but then I did not go south to the tourist destinations only north as I was on rout to Loas.

http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q101/FJ_Biker/wb1/07-00017-Laos-Vientiane-Tuk-Tuk.jpg
We hired this taxi bike/trike in Laos

http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q101/FJ_Biker/wb1/07-00047-Vietnam-Hanoi-BeerOnMoped.jpg
Pretty small picture of a bike carrying crates of beer in Hanoi from our hotel room.

http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q101/FJ_Biker/wb1/07-00048-Vietnam-Hanoi-LoadedPushbi.jpg
Evan pushbikes carry loads of clobber

http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q101/FJ_Biker/wb1/08-00019-Vietnam-Hue-MopedJam.jpg
Moped traffic jam in Hue

Hired a taxi bike for two dollars for half a day in Vietnam in the rain so did not get any pictures. The bike was a Honda C90 moped if I remember right. No crash hats and a disposable plastic coats to keep us dry.

Quite a few dealers selling electric mopeds in this country. Not many big bikes in this part of the world as the infrastructure is not up to it. Quite a few people were surprised when I told them my bike in the UK had over 100km on the clock.

[ro]

Some amazing sights there - looks like an interesting adventure! Was this all on one trip?

[FJ_Biker]

Ro this was all on one trip around 4 years ago.

It was an eventful journey including derailed trains, sitting next to people on busses with kalashnikov’s, waiting at border points while they cleared land slides on mounting passes.

[igbell]

Over that side of the world the largest bikes are around the 200cc, my mate who is Vietnamese said he used to take his family about on his 125cc and that was 5 people on one bike, but it was a dicy operation, as over there the bigger the motor (say truck or bus) wins at the lights or in an oncoming incident.