Driving in the PRC

This is a blog that has been waiting to be written for many a week. And what better time than now?

When I arrived here in Quesnel at the beginning of June, Brian and Lisa kindly let me stay with them while I was acclimatising. They had found me a place to stay downtown (which some of you would have read about already), which I was to move into a couple of weeks after arriving. That, obviously, meant that I would need transport ...

One chap soon lent me a bicycle, but I still needed a car. And that was where their son Jesse's Taurus, appropriately nicknamed "Hello Kitty," came in. He was just about to get his drivers' licence, but still sacrificed his ride to save me from possible cardiac arrest, trying to cycle up the hill in my sorry state of fitness every morning. He had received the car as a gift, complete with all the kitty paraphernalia and had just never bothered to change it. I, however, was keen to build on it for its comedic value by getting some of the teens in the church to graffiti more "Hello Kitty" graphics on the outside. Jesse, unfortunately, was having nothing of it.

The "Hello Kitty" car

"Hello Kitty" steering wheel

As much as I loved the car, I felt Jesse's pain at having his driving licence but no vehicle in which to cruise town, left arm propped lazily on the window and music blaring. And so I was constantly on the lookout for a vehicle of my own. That's where the F150 I saw at a yard sale in June came in. Do you remember the one, with the antlers on the hood?

Well, to cut an awfully long story short, it is now mine - thanks to some incredible generosity. While living in Madagascar I owned a much-loved beat-up Yamaha XT350 that I called "The Beast." In honour of the Yamaha, and because the F150 leaks at least as much oil as the old girl had done in Mada, I have named my truck (that's bakkie to you South Africans, or pick-up to others) "The Green Beast." Not very original, I know, but she's mine for now and so I get to name her!

She's missing her right side mirror and is slowly rusting away to nothing but has plenty of grunt in her yet. But that grunt does come at a cost - she's a real gas guzzler. Her paint job too is, um, interesting. She was apparently painted by hand, with a roller, by a hillbilly trapper who lived in the hills outside of town, and who was murdered some time after selling her. I don't think she had anything to do with the killing though ... At least, I hope not. Although I am hoping to get some of the youngsters to add some graffiti to her, for sure. Like, maybe a zombie or two chewing at the back wheel arch. 

Aint she beootiful?

Still running after all these years

Bug killer

 (I'm almost done. Hang in there.)

Late last week I finally took my British Columbia driving test, which I needed to do within three months of arriving. I was full of confidence and swagger but the testing dude soon had me as nervous as a teenager on a first date. Firstly, it turned out that the car I was doing the test in wasn't insured. But actually it was - the insurance sticker was just missing. We sorted that out and got ready to go for the test. Then there was a problem with the windscreen ...

90% of vehicles here seem to have cracked windscreens so I thought nothing of it. But he made me sign a document saying the car would never be used for a test again - or at least not until the windscreen had been fixed. Finally we set off and then, after only one block, he told me to drive back to the office.

"Say what?!?!" I thought to myself. "I failed after only one block?!?!"

But it turned out that he had dropped my South African licence when checking the road-worthiness of the car, and had to go and look for it. Fortunately he found it, and finally we set off for real. I was sweating, my mouth was dry and my head was bobbing around more than one of those little dogs people put in their rear windows, so busy was I checking my right shoulder, blind-spots and speed. I practically gave myself whiplash.

Despite racing at 60kph across one of the bridges, not stopping dead enough at the majority of stop signs, and driving in a cycle lane at one point, I did get my licence. I guess he had tested plenty of South Africans in his career, and knows that these signs of apparent lawlessness don't necessarily make us bad drivers ... After all, how does one unlearn years of bad habits and avoiding hijackings in a matter of months?

So, beware people of Quesnel, the South African with a BC licence in the Green Beast is loose on your roads...