Throughout history, a variety of means of transport, personal and public, appeared one after another in Vietnam. According to the natural elimination law of life, they are also replaced by newer means to better serve life. This series of articles will review the ancient ways of traveling of Vietnamese people that have become a thing of the past today.
KIEU
Starting from the feudal period of the Nguyen Dynasty (1802-1945), every time kings left the palace, they used palanquins to travel. The book Kham Dinh Dai Nam Hoi Dien Su Le , compiled by the Nguyen Dynasty’s Cabinet, devoted an entire chapter Nghi Ve (volume 79) to describe the types of palanquins used for kings and mandarins of the Nguyen Dynasty, with very specific regulations on names. The name, number of palanquins and accompanying ceremonial staff depend on the time, status and rank of the user.
During the reign of King Gia Long (1802 – 1820), the king’s palanquin had 4 carriages, including 1 Ngoc Lo , 1 Kim Lo and 2 Kim Bao Du . During the Minh Mang dynasty (1820 – 1841), the king had 5 cars, named Cach Lo, Kim Lo, Ngoc Lo, Tuong Lo and Moc Lo . Depending on the purpose of the trip, the king decides what type of “car” to use.
The book also says that when the king went out, he did not perform all the rituals like when he went to worship at temples. At this time, the king only used a golden parasol embroidered with dragon images to protect him from sun and rain, accompanied by an army of strikers and tigers. During the reign of Minh Mang, the king stipulated that when traveling within the Imperial Citadel, the number of flags and fans must be reduced by half and there is no need for elephants or horses to escort them to avoid… “traffic jams”.
The queen mother’s palanquin, called Tu Gia , is equally majestic, including 1 Phuong Du and 1 Phuong tureen . Lu Bo accompanying the Tu shelf has 2 dragon flags, 2 phoenix flags, 2 Thanh Tao flags, 8 banner flags, 2 fans embroidered with yellow dragon and phoenix images, 4 fans embroidered with red dragon and phoenix images, 4 fans embroidered with images of yellow dragons and phoenixes. blue phoenix and 20 additional protective weapons.
There is only one palanquin for the crown prince, called the Bo Lien carriage . The set accompanying this vehicle only has 1 command flag, 2 green flags, 2 red flags, 2 yellow flags, 2 white flags, 2 black flags, 8 banner flags, 1 round canopy embroidered with 7 dragons, 4 pieces. square canopy, 4 red parasols, 6 blue parasols painted with cloud dragons…
During the reign of Khai Dinh (1916-1925), the king was given a car by the French on the occasion of the Fourth Anniversary (to celebrate the king’s 40th birthday). Since then, in addition to using the traditional throne during ceremonies, King Khai Dinh sometimes also used a car to travel or go hunting outside the Imperial Citadel.
Before that, the court had 2 stone steles erected in front of Ngo Mon. On the steles were written 4 Chinese characters: Khuynh cai ha ma , which means that when passing by here, people must tilt their parasols and dismount their horses. Since King Khai Dinh used a car, these two steles are no longer appropriate. Therefore, the court had these two steles uprooted and stored in the warehouse of the Khai Dinh Museum (now the Hue Museum of Royal Antiquities).
This is also the place where King Bao Dai’s lacquered and gilded palanquin is displayed, used to travel within the Hue Imperial Citadel. In addition, in the warehouse of this Museum is kept the palanquin that King Bao Dai used when going to worship Nam Giao in 1935.
During the French colonial period, palanquins were still used, but the users of palanquins were expanded. At this time, palanquins were also used for French colonial officials and their families and native dignitaries on business trips or sightseeing. In the pictures of the trip to Do Son beach below, the palanquin bearers are all indigenous women, they carry the palanquin on 2 horizontal wooden bars and the palanquin is placed on 2 longer vertical bars.
In the movie Indochine made by director Régis Wargnier in April 1992 with actors Catherine Deneuve (as Eliane), Vincent Perez (John the Baptist), Linh Dan Pham (Camille), Jean Yanne (Guy Asselin), the audience Audiences were treated to a palanquin scene of the actor playing John the Baptist. Indochine is a majestic film depicting the life of the French during the colonial period in Indochina. The film uses up to 1,800 costumes of both Europeans and natives.
In feudal times, mandarins of the Nguyen Dynasty were not allowed to use palanquins but could only sit in covered hammocks, carried by four soldiers. The horizontal beam of the hammock is lacquered and gilded, engraved with the image of a dragon, and the vertical pole of the hammock is engraved with the image of an animal, corresponding to the rank of the mandarin sitting on the hammock.
Pink silk hammock. The canopy of the hammock is covered with blue oil to protect from sun and rain. The first rank mandarins had 4 soldiers carrying 4 parasols to serve them, the first rank mandarins had only 3 parasols, the second rank mandarins had only 2 parasols, and the mandarins from third rank down to ninth rank had only 1 parasol bearer following them. .
In addition, new graduates who passed the exam were allowed to use hammocks to return to the village “Vinh Quy, Bai To”. In an old folk song, there is a saying “The horse goes first, the horse follows” to describe the glory of a successful student.
News that the person who passed the exam was brought back to the village, the village officials met at the communal house, and appointed people to meet the New Faculty to determine the day of honor and procession to the original hometown. Usually, those who pass the Baccalaureate are only invited to the village to process, those who pass the Bachelor’s degree must receive a procession from the district, those who pass the Doctorate will receive a procession, and the men of the district will bring all the ceremonies and flags to welcome them from the province and bring them to the village. However, those in the Tan Khoa mandarin’s family are exempted from being procession workers.
Rickshaw
Learning about the history of the rickshaw, it is believed that this type of vehicle was born at the beginning of the Meiji era in Japan, around 1869. At that time, well-off families could buy a rickshaw. workers pull it when you need to move, instead of having to walk.
According to Wikipedia, rickshaw – Rickshaw in English, Pousse-Pousse in French – originates from the Japanese word “Jinrikisha” which is composed of “jin” (human), “riki” (strength) and “sha ” (car). Thus, “Jinrikisha” is a vehicle powered by human traction.
Starting in 1870, the Tokyo city government granted licenses to produce and sell rickshaws to three people considered the creators of this “modern” means of transportation: Izumi Yosuke, Takayama Kosuke and Suzuki Tokujiro. To be allowed to operate in Tokyo, rickshaws must be stamped with permission from these three inventors.
Rickshaws appeared in Asian cities such as China (1873), Singapore (1880), Vietnam (1883) and at the end of the 19th century in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Hong Kong, and Korea. Tien… In general, rickshaws are present throughout the Asian continent, which has the largest population in the world and is also a place with a lower level of development than Europe and America.
In 1883, the rickshaw, also known as a handcart in the North, appeared for the first time in Hanoi by the French Ambassador, Jean Thomas Raoul Bonnal, brought from Japan. The Hanoi rickshaw appeared one year after the first car in Europe and one year before the tramway, a horse-drawn vehicle. Nearly 15 years later, Saigon learned about this type of car.
The history of rickshaw development in Vietnam began in 1884 when a French contractor produced about 50 vehicles to supply to the whole North, then also known as Tonkin. Since then, the rickshaw has gradually become familiar in Hanoi and is only used by those with positions and money as a means of transportation while walking is still the main means of transportation for the majority of people.
Sitting on a rickshaw symbolizes the wealth and authority of the French and noble families of the native people, but before that, the young ladies of Hanoi rarely used rickshaws for fear of being misunderstood as… Me Western. . At that time, indigenous women who married Frenchmen in the colony were often sarcastically called “Western women”, just as later in Saigon, some people were given the “title”… “American women” when they married. Kiss an American.
A rickshaw rental company was then established in Hanoi. The first rickshaws had iron wheels and did not run smoothly, but passengers had to reserve a spot a day in advance if they wanted to be hired. Gradually, rickshaw wheels were covered with rubber so they ran smoother and iron-wheeled vehicles moved to the suburbs.
The “wheel” revolution divided into two types of users: rubber wheels were reserved for colonial officials and families while iron wheels were reserved for the indigenous middle class.
Even rickshaws with rubber wheels are divided into two types, normal type and OMIC type. This type has a seat made of shiny white aluminum and has a spring mattress covered with white fabric. Of course, riding this type of car is more expensive than riding a regular car.
Images of mandarins, soldiers, civil servants… during the feudal era under the feudal dynasty through the perspective of French photographers when they came to Indochina, including Vietnam, show a complete view of a period that lasted in Vietnam under French colonial rule.
The rickshaw is considered a symbol of class distinction between workers who have to use their strength to earn a living and the passengers sitting in the back are the noble and wealthy. The short story Horseman – Human Horse by Nguyen Cong Hoan tells the story of the miserable life of the rickshaw puller, also known as “coolie”, amidst the night scene of the 30th day of Tet.
The story is about a hungry bus driver on New Year’s Eve who encountered a modern customer who thought he had a lot of money but turned out to be too stingy, only paying two dimes for an hour of driving. He pulls the cart now, so he only drives erratically, the way Nguyen Cong Hoan describes it: “strong butt, but short steps.”
The story has only two characters and at first the reader seems to belong to two different classes, but in the end they realize that they are just “human horses” pulled behind by “human horses”, a “woman” who is a guest. The girl who “eats dew” rents a rickshaw to go looking for customers on New Year’s Eve. Having no money to pay the rickshaw man, the “lady” customer even borrowed two dimes from him to buy a pack of cigarettes, a box of matches, and even melon seeds to bite into!
The cart driver was excited as New Year’s Eve approached: “In fifteen minutes, we will have six dimes.” Six dimes plus two dimes are eight. No matter what, I begged her to open the store for another dime to nine. Nine dimes! Opened right from the new year. So lucky! The new year has brought fortune! Well, next year we will definitely do ten times as much business as we did a hundred years ago.”
Nguyen Cong Hoan leads readers to a fascinating passage after the carriage driver dragged the “lady” passenger around the streets of Hanoi for nearly 2 hours on New Year’s Eve:
– Hey, park down, I’ll tell you. Let me tell you the truth. It’s already morning now, I’m sure he’ll drag me around forever. I don’t really have any fake money. If I give you a scarf, a shirt, and a watch, but you don’t take it, I don’t know what to think. Well, you pull me out to a private, deserted place. I’ll accept whatever you want to force me to do.
– What do I arrest you?
She grabbed his hand, patted the driver’s shoulder, and grinned:
– This guy is so honest, meaning it’s just you and me, then this is me, I’m willing to do whatever you want.
– Oh come on! I bowed to her. If you make me sick, I will leave my mother.
– Don’t be afraid, I just had a medical examination yesterday.
– Well, I clasp my hands together and beg you, if you love me, please get out of the car so I can go home, and ask you for fare!
– Then you can just drag me to my house and see if there’s anything valuable, then you can just take it.
Arriving at the door of a tire shop, she told the rickshaw driver to stop by to ask for a loan. Exhausted, while waiting for customers to borrow money, the driver fell asleep. When the New Year’s Eve fireworks exploded, he woke up. When I went to ask about the “stupid” waiter, I found out that the girl had escaped through the back gate. And here is the ending:
“The driver gritted his teeth, frowned, crawled out onto the sidewalk, grabbed the mattress and slammed it into the box with a thud! He reached into his pocket, took out a box of matches, burned his heart, then flexed his foot, pulled up the fork, reached out his hand to support, and slowly led the car away… The sound of firecrackers welcoming spring followed one after another .
As mentioned above, old Saigon only got acquainted with rickshaws in 1898, about 15 years after Hanoi. The reason is easy to understand because the official French colony has the only means of transportation which are horse-drawn carriages that the French call “Malabar” or “Boîte d’allumettes” (because the carriages look like a box of matches).
A characteristic of Saigon rickshaws in the early 1920s was that each one was assigned a 4-digit vehicle number for easy control when circulating, while Hanoi rickshaws did not have one. Below are some pictures of rickshaws in the South
Horse wagon
In ancient times, Chinese nobles used horse-drawn carriages when traveling. In the Middle Ages, in France and some European countries, aristocrats often rode carriages drawn by two horses, or two-horse carriages, showing the class of people from noble families. Nowadays, two-horse vehicles are only used to take tourists on sightseeing trips.
In the South in the 1880s of the 18th century, horse-drawn carriages were a popular and affordable means of transportation in the Saigon-Gia Dinh area. This is a one-horse-drawn carriage derived from the luxurious French two-horse carriage crafted by Southern people to suit the economic, social and topographical conditions of Vietnam.
Before that, the French introduced horse-drawn carriages into Indochina as a means of transporting passengers as well as goods. The French called carriages in the colony “Malabar” and later also called them “Boîte d’allumettes” because of their shape like a box of matches.
One of the oldest images of horse-drawn carriages in Saigon is that of the Opium Factory (Manufacture d’Opium) taken around the early 1980s.
You can see the words in French on the side of the car clearly stating that it is a factory car. On the left is a picture of a rickshaw puller standing and looking at a horse-drawn carriage. He seems to be very surprised at the image of a horse-drawn carriage being brought into Indochina by the French.
Horse carriages in the form of simple “improved” vehicles were also used in the operations of the French expeditionary force in colonial Indochina. This type of vehicle is used to transport military equipment and supplies in the armed forces of the colonial army.
More elaborate horse-drawn carriages were used to transport passengers, including colonial officials and their families. These vehicles have the appearance of the two-horse vehicle commonly found in Europe with the “driver” being a native.
Thus, even among local drivers, there are many classes divided into many classes depending on the level of luxury of the vehicle: the lowest is the rickshaw driver (also known as coolie), next is the “driver”. (horse carriage driver) and the highest is the car driver (chaffeur).
Characteristics of the period when horse-drawn carriages were first introduced into Indochina were those with two horses or only one horse pulling them. The vehicle’s body is placed on four wheels. The two rear wheels have a larger diameter than the two front wheels to balance the horse running in front, different from the horse-drawn carriages built by the Vietnamese later with only two wheels.
In the North, then also known as Tonkin, the French also used horse-drawn carriages for colonial officials but the number was insignificant compared to the South, also known as Cochinchine.
Before the luxurious French horse-drawn carriages, the Vietnamese people tried to create a simpler and more popular one-horse carriage to meet the needs of traveling and transporting goods. This type of one-horse carriage also has another name, the burial carriage.
There are many explanations about the origin of the name burial cart in the South. Some people say that earthen tombs have a cupped roof that resembles the shape of a tomb, so ordinary people call them… “earthen tombs”. The linguistic explanation is that “tomb burial” is a word that reads “thơu ma” or “thu ma” in the language of the Cantonese people, who are the majority of Chinese people living in the South.
There is an opinion that “tomb burial” is the word from Thu Dau Mot, Binh Duong province, which is considered the “cradle” of the tomb burial cart. To prove this hypothesis, people cite an ancient rhyme about 47 markets in the South:
… Dry like rice paper is Phan Rang market,
The horizontal tomb-bursting cart is Thu Dau Mot market
Don’t worry about flooding, Bung Cau market…
The 40s and 50s were the period of development for burial carts. At Thu Dau Mot market, there are up to 3 busy bustling bus stations, sometimes up to over 50 buses. Not only that, Thu Dau Mot also has many famous carpentry farms that build tomb carts with beautiful, elegant trunks and durable wheels. Cars produced in Thu Dau Mot are also called “Thu Dau” cars to distinguish them from other production places and also to affirm their “class”.
To make a tomb cart requires many strict requirements and is not as simple as one might think. The dimensions of length, width, and height of the vehicle body must be balanced when moving on all terrains. The vehicle’s trunk is placed on two spring bars consisting of 4 steel sheets to reduce shock when the vehicle is running on the road. In general, every detail of the vehicle must be accurate to create safety when moving.
The wood used to make the tomb cart must be of good quality such as Giang Huong, Cam Xe, jackfruit wood… without termites. The most important thing is the pair of wheels, because they are the main load-bearing parts, so they are made very carefully. The vehicle’s horizontal axle is made of steel pipes that bear the weight of the vehicle’s body, but it does not use bearings, only bearings.
Each wheel is assembled from six pieces of wood attached to 12 spokes inserted into the wheel axle. Then, an iron ring is wrapped around the wheel to protect the wood and finally a layer of rubber mattress is tightened on the outer ring.
The car’s trunk is designed to be airy and comfortable for passengers, but it seems a bit high above the road surface while there is only one piece of iron for passengers to get in and out of the car. This is also the weakness of the tomb cart, but some people like to sit on the cart with their legs dangling to watch the street.
Inside the trunk, passengers sit on mats facing each other, their sandals hanging on two iron poles behind the two corners of the trunk. If there is no room, guests can sit with their legs hanging on the side with the up and down pedals. The two wavy side fenders can be used to store goods. And at the top is a curved roof, roofed with tin, protruding halfway up the horse’s body, cupped like the roof of a gourd boat but also looking like a… grave, so it’s called an earth grave (?).
The sound of the earthen tomb with the “clacking, rattling” sounds coming from the iron-clad horseshoes in contact with the asphalt road surface has also become familiar to many generations of Southerners. There are many vehicles that still have bells attached to the horses, so when running on the road, the sound of the bells mixed with the sound of the driver, combined with the sound of the driver controlling the horse, creates a unique music of Saigon horse-drawn carriages. old.
Later, there was a more “civilized” line of tomb carts, improved from wooden wheels to inflatable rubber wheels with a smaller diameter and therefore a lower trunk. This type of vehicle helps passengers get on and off comfortably and safely. When running on the road, rubber tires are quieter, but on the contrary, the original “music” of the grave gradually fades away, making “nostalgic” people unable to rediscover the fun of the past.
The horses pulling the tomb cart are usually old racehorses, no longer strong enough to swing on the racetrack but can still move in the middle of bustling traffic streets. The leather saddle has two straps attached to the two forks placed on both sides of the horse’s shoulders. The saddle thread is also inserted into the horse’s tail so that when going downhill, it has the effect of restraining the horse. There is also a belly strap that supports the horse’s chest while the vehicle is running. The coachman sometimes positions passengers to sit up or down so that the horse doesn’t have the weight weighing on its shoulders or tightening its chest, making it difficult to run.
CYCLO
“Cyc-lo”, originating from the French word “cyclo”, is a means of transport using human power, moving on three wheels used to transport passengers or goods. The driver also operates the cyclo like a bicycle, so it is also called “pedal cyclo” and later improved with a motorcycle engine to become “motor cyclo”.
Also applying the same operating method as a cyclo, there are also three-wheeled vehicles with a trunk placed in the front to carry bulky items, and later the three-wheeled vehicle was improved into a motorized three-wheeled vehicle with a motorized vehicle. Nay.
In contrast to cyclos, in the West, also known as Luc Tinh, there is a type of bicycle that pulls a passenger box behind it called a buggy, very popular in the Mekong Delta provinces. Gradually, people started using motorbikes for towing, similar to their cousin, the mechanical cyclo.
The first cyclo appeared in Saigon in 1938, but the design was not drawn by a Vietnamese but was the “work” of a Frenchman. The history of the cyclo is even more exciting, the first cyclo officially licensed for circulation by the protectorate authorities was not in Saigon but in Phnom Penh, the capital of Chua Thap country in French Indochina including Vietnam. South, Cambodia and Laos.
Cyclo appeared around 1938 in Phnom Penh. The first one was designed by a Frenchman, a resident of the Charente region named Coupeaud, a sports enthusiast. It took a lot of effort for Coupeaud to lobby the Ministry of Public Works to recognize the invention and grant a circulation license, after consulting with two Tour de France champions, Georges Speicher and Le Grèves.
To “market” the three-wheeled passenger vehicle with the driver sitting in the back of the vehicle, Coupeaud organized a nearly 200km long “product introduction” journey from Phnom Penh to Saigon by two people taking turns. cycled for 17 hours and 23 minutes!
And cyclos conquered old Saigon with 40 cyclos in 1939, but just one year later, in 1940, Saigon had about 200 cyclos running on the streets.
In general, a cyclo is a combination and connection of iron pipes of all types and sizes, from the passenger protection bar in the front to the driver’s seat in the back. These two parts are connected together by an axle located under the car, below the passenger seat, helping the driver to turn right, left or go straight forward.
The driver’s saddle is also a simple structure with a handbrake located right below in the form of an iron ring or a horizontal bar so the driver can pull up whenever he wants to slow down or stop the vehicle.
Driving a cyclo is not as easy as people think. The saddle is very high, so it is very difficult for people who are “lacking in height” to “climb” up, not to mention that once they can climb onto the saddle, they may not be able to cycle all the way around if their legs are too short.
The rear part of the vehicle is connected to the trunk by a vertical shaft, so when making a tight turn, the vehicle will lose balance and easily overturn. However, I once witnessed a cyclo “master” perform driving on… 2 wheels. This means the car is completely tilted to one side, and of course there are no passengers in the car.
When a passenger gets on or off the vehicle, the driver must hold the back because if the passenger is “heavy” it will cause the rear of the vehicle to reverse. Again, the cyclo driver must be good at… “negotiating” because customers always negotiate bargains before getting on the bus. Depending on the circumstances, the driver can accept the price the customer pays or take the car without looking for another deal!
Portraits of cyclo drivers are also diverse. It could be a person wearing a conical hat, high-waisted low-cut pants, and flip-flops that clearly reveal ten dirty toes. In the hot afternoon, the cyclo driver found a place under a tree and took a nap right in the car to gain strength to continue roaming the streets to earn food.
There is a clear distinction between Saigon cyclo and Hanoi cyclo. While the Saigon cyclo can only seat one person (if necessary, it can “cram” another passenger), the Hanoi cyclo can comfortably accommodate two people.
Cyclo Saigon is a popular means of transportation so it looks old with the hood, sides and front covered with canvas when it rains… while Cyclo Hanoi was born late so it is carried in a fancy way. , the hood is made like a king’s parasol… often used to serve tourists
Following the advancement of science, the mechanical cyclo was born in the early 1960s. People who came to Saigon for the first time were very excited to sit on this unique means of transportation to see the streets. Mechanical cyclos run faster than bicycle cyclos and the operators are usually healthy young men, while bicycle cyclos are usually driven by older people.
The cyclo machine is assembled right in the South, with spare parts and components imported from France: Peugeot motorbike engine, 125 cc type, using gasoline mixed with oil. This is a 2-stroke engine, so when the engine starts, smoke is emitted and the sound of the vehicle’s engine also causes “noise pollution”.
The Cyclo machine was born during the war that escalated with the arrival of allied troops, especially American soldiers who loved this means of transportation. Some foreigners even say that riding a motorbike in Saigon is more interesting than riding a convertible car.
An American soldier wrote home describing the cyclo as “a monster with its mouth open, rampaging on the road”… “sitting on the cyclo is like a spaceship launching to the moon”… However, they also Seeing the danger lurking when sitting on a fast-moving cyclo, if an accident occurs, the passenger is the one most seriously affected while the driver sits far behind.
Lam Car
Entering the period of “motorcycle civilization”, initially Saigon appeared motorbikes with 2 front wheels and one rear wheel and then gradually switched to three-wheeled vehicles in contrast to cyclos and motorbikes, with one front wheel and one rear wheel. two rear wheels, called rickshaws.
The auto rickshaw is a popular type of public transport vehicle that was introduced to Saigon and the southern provinces in the 1960s to meet the travel needs of ordinary people. This type of vehicle has a similar structure to the “tuktuk” vehicle that is still being used in countries such as Thailand, India, Bangladesh… People explain the name “tuktuk” because of the sound of the engine exploding when running. on the road.
In the South, the term “rickshaw” comes from Lambretta and Lambro is the car brand of the manufacturer “Innocenti founded by Ferdinando Innocenti” in Italy in 1920. In addition to cars, Innocenti also produces two-wheeled vehicles. Lambretta branded wheels between 1947 and 1971. In 1996 Innocenti merged with Fiat and ended its own product lines.
In addition to Lambretta 2-wheeled vehicles, Innocenti also produces engines for 3-wheeled vehicles like we see appearing on the streets of old Saigon. These are the Lambretta FD models with a cylinder capacity of 123 or 150 cc and the improved FLI with 175 cc, then the Lambro 200, Lambro 550 both with a capacity of 198 cc.
Vespa also produces 3-wheeled vehicles and Saigon has imported a number of 3-wheeled Vespas with the same shape and structure as Lambretta and Lambro. In smaller numbers, 3-wheeled Vespas are also commonly called auto-rickshaws. We collected a photo of an “old-fashioned” three-wheeled Vespa in a shop specializing in repairing and painting vehicles… Lambretta:
Vespa is a famous brand of Piaggio, Italy, born after World War II with a line of low-seat, small-wheeled motorbikes also known as scooters. Rinaldo Piaggio (1864-1938) founded the Piaggio Company in Genoa in 1884 with the initial function of manufacturing equipment for ships, trains and aircraft.
By 1946, the first Vespa-branded scooters were designed by engineer Corradino D’Ascanio, who created a rounded frame shape and a distinct engine sound: “Sembra una vespa!” (It’s like a bee). Vespa is Italian for bee and the Vespa brand was born from there.
The three-wheeled Vespa uses the engine of a Vespa scooter with a larger capacity and Saigon has more Vespa-branded auto-rickshaws besides Lambretta and Lambro.
Auto-rickshaws were imported to the South one after another to replace burial carts, also known as horse-drawn carriages. In particular, when imported, auto-rickshaws are not “packaged”, the packaging is done in Saigon. According to statistics, out of nearly 35,000 Lambro 550 units shipped, nearly half (about 17,000 units) were exported to the Turkish and Vietnamese markets.
Around the years 1966-1967, the government of the Republic of Vietnam conducted a program called “Propertyization” to provide public transportation for workers who needed jobs and also to improve the lives of workers. boats, developing transport infrastructure… And that is an opportunity for auto-rickshaws to penetrate the southern market.
In addition to the “propertyization” of taxis painted yellow on the roof and green on the bottom, a number of autorickshaw drivers are also subjects of the propertyization program, among them are many people from bus drivers. horse carriage becomes a rickshaw driver. They signed installment contracts so they could own a motorbike that runs on the streets every day to earn a living.
The price of a motorbike in the 60s was about 30 gold bars, but gold back then was still cheap and did not “escalate” like today. There is an autorickshaw driver who even brags: “If you drive for one day, you won’t be able to eat for a whole month.” Saying that may be a bit too much, every job has its hardships and hardships, but that statement shows that the profession of autorickshaw driver in its heyday was one of the “hot” jobs…
The characteristic of the auto rickshaw is its “mobility”, passengers can get on and off the bus at any place along the route without needing a boarding station like a bus. In the South during the escalating war period, the auto rickshaw was also an effective means of “running away from the enemy” because it was compact and could carry a lot of belongings as shown in the picture below:
After the incident of April 30, 1975, auto-rickshaws continued to exist while taxis took many years to recover during the Doi Moi period with yellow-painted taxis branded Vinataxi, a joint venture with Hong Kong. The auto-rickshaw during this period was used as a popular, cheap means of transportation and of course still retained its “golden age”.
At that time, in Bien Hoa town alone, there were 6 auto-rickshaw cooperatives with about 1,000 vehicles officially registered to carry passengers, with millions of passengers each year. That’s why there was a time when Bien Hoa was considered the “auto-rickshaw capital”. Later, the auto-rickshaws were “old” but were still brought to the North to solve increasingly complex traffic problems in large cities.
An auto rickshaw is a vehicle with a front cabin for the driver and a trunk that can carry passengers and goods. Guests sit on benches along both sides of the vehicle with a capacity of over 10 people, not to mention special cases where 2 more guests can sit on either side of the driver in the cockpit!
The vehicle’s engine is located right under the driver’s seat. When the car stalls, the driver must jump off the road, lift the seat, clean the spark plug, use a rope to pull the engine to start or use the pedal to restart the engine.
When there are many passengers, the driver is also willing to sit in the middle of the seat to have more room for two passengers to sit on either side. The story is about a car that was running smoothly and suddenly the car’s engine stopped working. The driver said to the two ladies sitting on both sides: “Ladies, please get out of the car so I can ride the engine.”
Being from the South, the driver pronounced “pedal the engine” like “pedal the roof”, causing a woman to speak up: “This guy ‘goes on the road’. The car stalled and didn’t worry about fixing it, but still asked to… step on the roof. Graceless!”
Inside the auto-rickshaw is a treasure trove of “tragic love stories” but sometimes also memorable “oh my god” stories. Crowded buses can mix with passengers with “rough hands” or “magical students” who specialize in pickpocketing. There are also “ghosts” who practice “enchantment” to steal property from passengers on the bus.
Passengers sitting “jostling shoulder to shoulder” on the bus can easily develop unexpected feelings, but it can also easily cause… disaster. There was a case where a boy was “captivated” by a girl on the auto-rickshaw, but when he got off the bus, his wallet… “flew away”.
It could also be a romantic love story of a couple going on a bus trip together as poet Tran Thanh recounted in the article On the bus trip :
“I still remember that fall
I met her on the bus
She looked at me with dreamy eyes
I shyly looked over without speaking…
“King of cheesy music” Vinh Su has the song ” Afternoon Bus Trip ” (*) with very popular lyrics recounting the love affair of a couple who met on a bus ride. The relationship later broke up not because she left to get married, but because he “was greedy for a poor wife” and married a rich girl:
“On the crowded bus this afternoon
Unfortunately, we’re not used to sitting next to each other
God has many ironies
People who don’t know anything
Why sit so close like lovers…
….
Who would have thought they would fall in love like water hyacinths
Drifting along the water unintentionally
He married a rich man
Your love is like the sands of the East Sea
I want to find a husband
But I’m more afraid of meeting ungrateful people…
A bygone era brings with it many memories from public transportation in old Saigon. This series of articles only records a small part of daily activities while traveling. Perhaps today’s younger generations do not expect that their parents and grandparents have gone through such interesting times. Who knows, maybe our children and grandchildren will see their ancestors… how miserable!
