Parking in Ho Chi Minh City. Not a center stand in sight.

Last week I talked about my few brief days in Southern Vietnam and the scooter culture there. In part 2 we move into Cambodia. But before we move on, one last note about Vietnam:

If it’s one thing Vietnamese scooterists seem to like to do with their rides it’s customize. But not in the radical sense of a complete chop-down. More a thing here, a thing there. Almost every rider I saw had replaced some small part of their scooter with a custom part to add a little extra bling. A wing-mirror here, a fender there; and chrome is a big factor no matter the accessory. On every other street corner in Ho Chi Minh City, a scooter bauble could be bolted on to your ride for a couple of bucks. Every bike also comes with a kick-stand as standard even the latest catalog of Vespas which are sold without USA style center-stands. In part I think to help park these beasts. With parking spaces consisting of hundreds of scooters leaning onto their stands, parking a straight-up center-stand scoot would, well, just not fit in.

Decals are also big here and I saw several shops that specialized in letting riders pick from a thick catalog of decals and have them applied “while-you-wait.” Brand new Vespas in particular seemed to be targets for these embellishments with entire cowls, fairings, or leg-shields jazzed up with Manga characters, flowers, swirls and other patterns. Want your helmet to match? No problem.

A vintage Vespa used as an art display outside a restaurant. Note the PX in the background. A dying breed here.

With four days in Ho Chi Minh city behind me it was time to hit the road to Cambodia.

Scooter prevalence, of course, continues into Cambodia and the route we took there revealed some other interesting facts about scootering in this part of the world. For one, you never drive more than a five mile stretch of highway without encountering some form of scooter service, whether it’s a gasoline stop, repairs, or an opportunity to purchase a brand new scoot.

Rather than counting on full-service gas stations, make-shift gas stops litter the side of the highways with gasoline sold by the liter in re-used soda bottles. In fact, it took me a few times of seeing pee colored Pepsi to figure out that these stalls were selling gas and not refreshments.

One of a small handful of vintages spotted on the road to Cambodia.

Scooter repair is generally indicated by two or three sixteen inch tires tied together into a makeshift pyramid and placed road side. Whoever was the first to think of this, I don’t know, but it has certainly become the scooter equivalent of the barber’s red and white pole to telegraph repairs. It is not unusual either at the side of the highway or on street corners in the major towns and cities including Ho Chi Minh to see a couple of guys set up on stools and working on scoots right there and then on the sidewalk. Usually the guys had a simple set of tools, a couple of spares, and a wire-brush which seemed to be the ubiquitous solve to all scooter ills.

After a few hours of driving we arrived in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. Phnom Penh is also the home of the Cambodian Tuk Tuk, a recent introduction to the country according to the locals. Rather than its more famous Thailand cousin, the Cambodian Tuk Tuk is not a complete unit vehicle similar to the Piaggio Ape, but rather a colorful passenger trailer that is connected to a pivot welded to the back of a normal scooter. During off-duty hours it was not unusual to see these scooters buzzing around the city without their trailers, no doubt taking the taxi driver home at the end of his shift.

Phnom Penh is also home to the famous Russian Market, a sprawling undercover market so called because it is the market most frequented by foreigners rather than locals who up until recently were mostly Russians (remember Cambodia has a troubled Communist history.)

As is typical in this part of the world, the market, like the streets, is divided into sections specializing in particular goods. Also like everywhere else in this part of the world, one of those goods is scooter spares. The scooter section is overwhelming with close to one hundred back-to-back stalls hawking scooter spares. Some gently used, some not-so-gently used and others brand new.

Every imaginable part can be purchased here including full chassis and engines although don’t expect said engine to be new. Much like Vietnam, the Honda Cub and various Asian clones rules the roost of scootering here. Syms, PGOs and Yamahas being similarly popular.

Sixteen inch wheels are in and, sadly, eight and ten inch wheels are most definitely out. In fact in my five days in Cambodia I didn’t see a single vintage Vespa or Lambretta. Maybe they never made it here in any significant numbers, I don’t know. Without the French colonization that was part of Vietnam’s past but not Cambodia’s. Cambodia or Kampuchea as it was once known never had a European connection.

Why uncrate scoots at the dealership when they sell faster than you can unpack them?

In the section of town specializing in selling new scooters however modern scoots were plentiful and were literally being sold directly out of the crate at many dealerships. A Cambodian I spoke to told me that a new scooter is typically close to a year’s wages in his country so it’s no wonder that these bikes become a critical part of the family and are kept running at all costs.

That’s it for this week. Next week in the third and final part I’ll wrap up my adventures in SE Asia with a few days in Bangkok where I finally found what I had personally been looking for, vintage scoots aplenty.

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