Chasing Rickshaws

Looks at rickshaws and the people who operate them in Agra, Calcutta, Hanoi, Macau, Penang, Singapore, Beijing, Dhaka, Hong Kong, Manila, Rangoon, and Yogyakarta

Wheeler, founder of Lonely Planet publishing house, and outstanding travel photographer Richard I'Anson team up to produce an armchair travel book that takes a unique tack. Their lavishly illustrated account is a self-styled celebration of the rickshaw, the "Asian taxicab." Roaming through a dozen cities, including Beijing, Calcutta, Hanoi, Manila, and Singapore, Wheeler and I'Anson study the diversity of this ubiquitous vehicle, examining individual configurations from city to city. (In some cities, for instance, passengers sit behind the driver, and in other cities, they sit in front of the driver.) They found it was unusual for rickshaw drivers to own their own machines; most rented them from fleet operators. They stopped and talked to not only drivers but also passengers and even repairmen to get the whole picture of the rickshaw world; and it is a world they intimately, even beautifully, share with their readers. Brad Hooper

Human-pulled rickshaws have mostly vanished from the Asian landscape, but pedal rickshaws can still be found in many places. Known as triciclos in Macao, cyclos in Vietnam, and trishaws in Malaysia, they carry their passengers in front of the pedaler in Indonesia, in back in India, and on the side in Myanmar. Though they remain a major form of everyday transportation in Bangladesh, they primarily serve tourists in Singapore and are banned in Jakarta. In this stunning coffee-table book, the first from Lonely Planet, picturesque photos and crisp, pertinent text tell the story of rickshaws today, including interviews with operators, technical comparisons, and information on where to buy them. This will be a popular book in public libraries.?Harold M. Otness, Southern Oregon Univ. Lib., Ashland
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.