Tuk to the Road

The trials and tukulations of Jo, Ants and Ting Tong the tuk tuk and our three-wheeled odyssey from Bangkok to Brighton...in aid of the mental health charity Mind. For more information please see www.tuktotheroad.com

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

No butt surfing please we’re British

28th August, Prague

Our hotel in Krakow was a really unique place, rammed full of paintings and antique furnishings. Our bedroom was on the top floor and had a skylight, so we had a good view out over the city. The only drawback was that the early morning light flooded in and woke us up.

The tukkers were both tired and therefore did not spend the day sightseeing, rather pottered around Rynek Glowny square and enjoyed the café culture.

So, Krakow was a fascinating place, but without the time or the energy we didn’t manage to do it justice. There will be many places on our list to return to at a later date as regular tourists e.g. Odessa, Lviv, Krakow.

Our departure from Krakow was slightly delayed by TT. On the way to Krakow the accelerator cable had snapped and TT had started hissing. We had replaced the accelerator cable on the road, but I had made the job more difficult by removing the plastic sheath that should have encased the cable. Before we left we had a poke around to try and find a cause for the hissing and I attempted to rethread the cable. Both jobs were unsuccessful and a guy who was working in the hotel had to sort out my botch job. Next stop was a local mechanic. He managed to rethread the accelerator cable but didn’t really try to find the source of the hissing. Instead, he slightly tightened her drive belt. We didn’t feel particularly confident that she would be sorted, but tukked off anyway and decided that we could stop at another mechanic if the hissing became unbearable.

Our next stop was Auschwitz to visit the site where the Nazis committed heinous crimes against the Jews and other humans back in the 1940s. It was a suitably grey and drizzly day and the sites were very well designed to educate tourists about the atrocities committed. We left feeling a bit depressed that any human being could cause such suffering to other human beings i.e. their brothers and sisters. However, it seems that leaders never really learn from the past and our supposed democratic governments in the western world still think that it is justifiable to kill innocent women, children and men. In the case of the USA they pass it off as that rather vulgar euphemism of ‘collateral damage’. There can never ever be any justification for killing innocent civilians, whether intentional or unintentional. When will some of the people in this world get it into their thick skulls that they are wrong.

As we left Auschwitz the rain became heavier and so we decided to stay in a local hotel. The Hotel Glob was the ultimate concrete communist-era eyesore, but thankfully was much more pleasant inside.

The following morning we were up early for a long drive to Prague. Our darling TT decided that she didn’t want to start and so we had to enlist the help of a young mechanic to get her going. Once we were on our way the drive was OK. The directions were very clearly signposted and the tarmac was pretty smooth. In fact, you would not believe that I drove TT at just over 70mph on the Czech motorway. The border crossing was incredibly simple and took a mere two minutes- unbelievable. The Czech roads were the most consistently good and fast and we got to Prague in daylight, although we got lost for about half an hour once in the city trying to find our apartment.

I will now explain the title of this blog. Butt surfing is not something that people do in the privacy of their bedrooms. What I am referring to is the behaviour that we call tail gating in England. Basically, stupid drivers who think it is a great idea to get right up another vehicle’s ass and drive within a couple of feet. We have had to deal with this behaviour during the whole trip, but the faster the vehicles travel the more potentially lethal it becomes, regardless of whether the vehicle has ABS or not. We have seen so many accidents that have occurred as a direct result of butt surfing. We drive TT so that she keeps a good 2-4 seconds behind the nearest vehicle in front. As the vehicles get faster we are increasing the distance. Sometimes, the large gap we leave between ourselves and the vehicle in front is far too tempting for drivers behind us and they force us to briefly butt surf as they cut in right in front of us. Do people not realize that when you take control of a motorized vehicle you are in control of a potentially lethal piece of machinery. Dangerous driving also encompasses drink driving and anyone that indulges in either is an incredibly selfish idiot. I should have bought the sticker that I have attached to the back of my Vectra in England- ‘Unless you’re a hemorrhoid, keep off my ass’.

1 Comments:

Blogger tuktotheroad said...

TT only hit that speed twice and that was downhill with a following wind!!!!! Don´t ever accuse us of driving in a daft manner Heid- keep your comments positive please.

1:32 AM  

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