Is that a motorcycle, a scooter or a motoscoot?
So what’s with all these little Honda Waves and their copycat cousins that I see everywhere I go throughout Asia? They are more than a scooter but less than a motorcycle. Even I get get confused so I have interchanged the two terms throughout this article. Whatever you decide to call them, they have taken over Asia. In North America, the big biker crowd would laugh them off the street. In the US and Canada, a 1000cc motorcycle is now considered a mid-sized machine. Here the two-wheel culture is a 180-degree turn from any paradigm I knew before I moved here. You would be hard-pressed to see a bike over 500cc during your daily walkabouts on the backstreets of Chiangmai. Travel to any country in Asia, and the Honda Wave,the Honda Dream and all their knock-offs, dominate the streets. Whether you are in Thailand, Bali, or China, these things are everywhere. You’ll find them parked at the mall by the hundreds, lined up at every intersection at the front of all the other traffic, and taking over any space through which you want to walk. Read More
