The Indian/Guatemalan Tuk-Tuk Connection?
Travelers to Asian cities (or much of the developing world) know the site (and smell!) of the ubiquitous ‘Auto-rickshaw’ — a three wheeled taxi used for short trips around typically urban areas. Delhi, Mumbai, and dozens of other uber-urban are swarming with 2-stroke, 4-stroke, natural gas, and diesel models:
The Auto-Rickshaw - a staple of daily life in South Asia.
Imagine my surprise when I landed in Guatemala to find the streets of Santiago filled with Auto-Rickshaws! Here they’re called Tuk-Tuks and bear more than a resemblance to the Auto-Rickshaws on the other side of the planet:
Both are made by the Indian company Bajaj - a massive company whose distribution network extends from India to Central America, South America, Asia, and Africa. Most of the Global South seems to be Bajaj’s market - an icon of one upwordly mobile nation is becoming that of many more…
Good or bad, pros or cons, globalization is happening. Of course the streets here in Guatemala are filled with Toyota Trucks made in the Americas, Toyota sedans from Japan, US made school buses, Hyudais and Nissans from Asia, Fords from up north and even some BMWs and Mercedes from Germany. As the Chinese and Indian economies evolve I think we’ll see more Bajaj products around the world, and it won’t be long before we see the $2500 car, the Tata ‘Nano’, here in Central America.
I think it also won’t be long before we see Guatemalan products in India - what do you think? Do you know of other similar stories of a shrinking planet?
RSS
Ann Cummings
This was interesting to read about these little vehicles - imagine if we actually used some variation of these vehicles here in America, especially with the price of gas today?
Auto-rickshaws - we could use plenty of those here!
Jesse@IHF
As an addendum: the tuk tuks here are all personalized, mostly with religious messages across their windshields: “Dios es Amor” “Jesus Salva Vidas.” There is also one lonely tuk tuk that says “SHALOM” across it. But my personal favorite is one which says “The Fast and the Furious” across the back with flames on its tiny mudflaps.
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