The Unexpected Tuk Tuk Ride

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Thump-thunk!

What just happened? What did we just hit?

About 10 minutes earlier, five of us piled into the tuk tuk, happy to get out of the rain. We were all a little hesitant about this strange vehicle, but thought what could go wrong? We joked about the rain, the tuk tuk, and just about anything else that came to mind as we went about our journey.

Just a few minutes into the ride, we ran over something or hit something, I’m still not sure. But it resulted in a jarring series of bounces and five shocked people all looking at each other in confusion.

We continued on our journey, though the tuk tuk didn’t seem to run the same. After a few minutes, the driver pulled over to see if we had a flat tire, but they were all fine. We shifted people around in the tuk tuk to see if redistributing the weight helped, but it still wasn’t riding right. We couldn’t do anything besides laugh with each bump we hit. Though I was rethinking my decision to wait until we arrived to go to the bathroom.

This short delay meant our driver lost track of the guy he was following. He was a new driver, and didn’t really know how to get where we were going. A missed exit here, a wrong turn there, and suddenly we found ourselves lost in a strange place in the rain.

He kept apologizing in heavily accepted English, but we kept laughing. One of the guys in our group had GPS on his phone and gave directions to the driver. We were having a great time.

Everything kept going wrong. We were clearly not in the right place, and the GPS kept sending us to streets that were blocked. The driver kept apologizing, but we kept laughing. We wondered whether we would ever get where we were going, but what else could we do besides laugh and enjoy the ride?

At one point, the driver tried to move over and almost hit another car, causing the other driver to honk and yell. As he pulled up next to our tuk tuk, I wondered if he was going to get out and start a fight with our driver.

Instead, our driver decided to ask the other guy for directions. All anger seemed to disappear as our driver was suddenly getting help from someone he almost crashed into.

Finally the driver got us out of the maze we seemed to be trapped in. The driver breathed a sigh of relief. We were no longer lost. Our destination was in sight.

We finally arrived at the Rotterdam Zoo.

Rotterdam, Netherlands

Thank you to Rotterdam Tourism and Holland Tourism for our post-conference trip! Flex Vervoer’s electric tuk tuks were a fun way to get around Rotterdam. Despite the dramatization, they were very professional and safe. As always, all opinions are my own.