Scooters in Taiwan

Taiwan, and many other Asian countries, are over run by scooters. At rush hour, it's typical to see 50-100 (maybe more) scooter crushing down the street. Taiwan has different rules of the road for scooters - they get to wait for red lights in front of all the cars in a special 'scooter box', they can't make left turns and some other interesting ones. Foreigners are supposed to hold a valid drivers license (either Taiwanese or international). I didn't. I never got pulled over, but if I had, it could have been a pretty serious offense. I rented my tiny 50cc scooter from an Australian guy and paid him a monthly fee. I don't think he rents scooters anymore, but it was much more convenient than having to buy one and sell it before leaving the country. I had to take it in once a month for a tune up. No big deal.

Driving in Taiwan made me a little anxious - weaving throughout lanes upon lanes of cars took some getting used to. It was unhealthy, too. As I mentioned above, scooters all park in a box in front of the cars while waiting at a red light. They are crushed together with very little space. Clouds of exhaust from the surrounding scooters made it impossible to breathe. Many people wore the face masks that became popular during the SARS outbreak in order to filter some of the pollutants in the air. I came back to the US wheezing - Singulair for 6 months cleared it up.