I’ve always been beguiled by tuk-tuks, those strange little workhorses, half motor-bike, half mini-pic-up that in one form or another can be found almost anywhere in the world. These marvellous little beasties go by various names; trishaw, autorickshaw, autorick, bajaj, mototaxi or baby taxi, depending where you are, and as the names imply, they are a motorized version of the traditional pulled or cycle rickshaw. But the tuk-tuks in Morocco are monsters in comparison to their Asian brethren, with big ‘don’t-mess-with-me’ motorbike front ends that would sneer at the whimpish eastern model based on the design of the Vespa motor-scooter.
I struggle to photograph a wavering tuk-tuk that seems to be blossoming with plants as we drive into Meknes, but the bumpy road jostles me around too much to get a decent shot. A small conifer, a young hydrangea, deep red and yellow marigolds, zinnias, if I’m not mistaken, which I probably am given that I can’t get a good view as we’re bouncing along; a bougainvillea climbing a cane, broad leaves and skinny leaves in various shades of green. Plant identification has never been my strong point, which probably accounts for the weird horticultural miss-match that I call my garden.
The basic tuk-tuk model is open to the elements, both the back-end and the driver, who can get pretty chilly with nothing to protect him against winter winds other than a thick djellaba and a woolly hat. These are used mainly for deliveries into the periphery of the medina, creating a bit of competition for the muleteers, but getting their comeuppance with narrow alleyways and steep, stepped inclines where the languidly plodding mule comes into its own. You also see them occasionally careering around loaded with kids sitting on wooden crates – in fact anybody sitting on wooden crates – who can’t afford the price of a bus ticket.
The more upmarket versions, the Rolls Royce of tuk-tuks, will have roll-up plastic sides and an awning to protect the driver from the worst of sun and rain, with some of them even having a full windshield to save streaming eyes from the chill-factor of driving into biting wind in the winter and dust in the summer. Invariably, when the rider has a crash-helmet it will be hung on a hook somewhere and not sat on his head as nature intended, while to guard against the constant thrum of the engine against a chap’s private parts, and as minor solace to a bum pounded by bumpy roads, the rider will almost always be sat on a thick cushion or folded rug.
The fancier tuk-tuks have padded benches running the length of the trailer interior and serve as competition to the petit taxis and grande taxis that hustle the streets for passengers. The petit taxis are supposedly for use within the city and the grande taxis for longer distances, with the tuk-tuk getting in where the others can’t reach. The padded benches are merely an approximation of how many people they can carry and work on the principle that when the seats are jammed sardine-like and no-one else can sit in the mini-gap on the floor between legs (they are too low for standing) there is still space for a couple of lightweights to hang onto the frame beside the driver. They seem to have taken this packing style from the grande taxis, whose seating plan of driver and four adults went out of the window long ago. I once saw one in Fez that was so jam-packed, passengers in the rear seats were trying to hold the doors closed with their arms out the windows and with two kids sat in the trunk with the lid up. It took off in a cloud of smoke, the exhaust sparking as it dragged along the road.
Hard-working things they may be, but even the best of machines can go wrong. As we pull up a slight rise at a set of traffic lights, cars nearest the sidewalk are trying to push in front of others to get past a semi-stationary tuk-tuk loaded with boxes. The driver is almost bent double trying to push his vehicle up the hill but not quite making it. Each time he stops to take a breather his tuk-tuk rolls back a little, like Sisyphus in Greek mythology, forever rolling an enormous boulder uphill only to see it rolling back down again.
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