She told me that her husband is a policeman, and that he had found the long lost Vino 125 scooter.
WTF? That was 7 months ago that it went missing, and they had found it in a place called Chang Hua, which is maybe a couple hundred km's away halfway down the Island.
After a few return calls to see what condition the scooter was in, and to find out where and when to go get it, I decided to take a train down to Chang Hua on Sunday morning. Trudi was keen to come too.
The train in Taiwan is brilliant. It's an example of what NZ could have had if they'd
kept the railway for regular use. $350 nt (about $15 NZD) for a reserved seat for the couple of hours journey to Chang Hua. Chunga Hua is famous for the "Fan Shaped Garage" which, oddly enough is a Train Garage that is fan shaped. I reckon if you were into trains, then you'd want to go and check this out.When we got there, we walked to the police station, about 15 mins away. They ushered us into the "Special Forces Department" of the police station, and then a guy came and got us and took us to a smaller room upstairs called the "Special Mission Section of the Special Forces Department" and inside was a bunch of guys sitting around in boxers and tanktops eating lunch.
They were saying "Whey Ter Ull" which is what these chinese characters: 威托爾 sound like. If you say "Whey Ter Ull" often enough is sounds like my last name.
So, they were expecting us. No one could speak english, and my chinese still sucks enough when it comes to talking about the good shit, so they found a student policeman who spoke a tiny bit of engrish to help.
He basically said that the bike had been crashed and I'd need to get it repaired before it can be taken away. At this point, I was just keen to take a look at the damn thing, so we asked to "take a look at the damn thing."
Well, firstly, Trudi was absolutely right: The FLAMES were still on it! Now that surprised me,
as I thought NO ONE would be dumb enough to ride a fairly rare expensive scooter, and leave some stick-on flames on it that basically make it extremely noticeable, Island-wide. Well, obviously the guy was an idiot, cos he'd also ran into the back of a truck or something on it.The Vino looked a bit of a mess with a smashed front, twisted steering and it also looked like it had been lying on it's side for a month or 3 getting all dirty.
I'd love to know where it was found and how, but there was no way of getting that sort of info out of the cops with our communication problems.
I reached into my pocket and grabbed the Vino key I still had and put it in. It went in perfectly (there was no damage to the ignition switch/lock due to the theif having a set of keys) but the battery was very sluggish, almost dead. I figured I was worth a try to start it, and after 30 seconds or whir, whir, whir it fired into life. All four of us couldn't believe how sweet the engine sounded. It seemed that apart from crashing the scoot, the dude actually took reasonable care of this beast - it is a sweet ride after all.
Anyway, we were a bit gutted it was smashed as it looked like our plan of riding it back to Taoyuan was foiled...........................or..................or was it?
Thinking to myself "What would Ewan do?" I took a look at the sky. Blue. Sunny. Not Rainy or windy.
I took a look at my watch, 12.30, and figured we had 5-6 hrs ahead of us without a head light, so if we wanted to leave, NOW would be a good time.
I took a closer look at the damage and the frame looked fine. The plastic front was a mess but structurally it was sweet. I asked the policeman if they had any tools and one gu
y came back with a pair of vice grips. mmm. Oh well, let's see if I can TWIST this.....there, the handlebars are now aligned with the wheel (a trick not so different from fixing yer bike after falling off when you're 8.)So after a quick lap around the police station car park to test the brakes and steering, the policeman was shaking his head saying thru the translator dude "YOU CAN'T RIDE THIS BACK TO TAOYUAN"
I said "Ker Eee, Ker Eee, I am an engineer, Ker Eee" Which basically means "No wucken furries mate, this machine is running sweet, it will be OK"
The policeman said we can only take it to get repaired. So we all nodded and went a got all the paperwork signed up, which included me having to put my thumb print in about 5 places along with my signature. I was given one sheet of paper that was basicially a "Get out of jail free" card if I got stopped along the way, which was quite likely.
Once we were on the bike, the policeman reiterated that they felt the bike was unsafe and it was at our own risk that we were riding it to the repair shop. I said Ker Eee again and thanks etc.
Well, f
unny thing was, there are no repair shops open on a sunday. We knew it, they knew it, so they probably had some idea that the crazy foreigners were going to ride the damn thing back.So we set off. The thief was kind enough to have left the bike gassed up, and that got us 1/2 way home. The ride was awesome, perfect weather on empty coastal roads for 4 1/2 hrs including a couple of breaks. The scooter didn't miss a beat and was SINGING all the way home.
We got all sorts of weird looks while stopped at traffic lights etc, but ya tend to get that being white here anyway, so the crashed scooter thing wasn't too much more interesting.
I took the scooter to the shop last night. It was raining. HARD. With lightning. The 20 min journey was more of a challenge than the whole day's riding from Chang Hua, and today I heard on the radio that the rain at that time was the Heaviest Spring Downpour on RECORD, so I picked an fantastic day to ride in the rain. Not.
When I rolled into the scooter shop, the same place where the scooter was sold new, it was like a homecoming (not so different from Ewan and Charlie's homecoming in "The Long Way Round") and the guys were practically trying to fix it before I'd even got off the damn thing.
Out came the service notepad and 5 mins later all the parts were listed and priced, so I gave them the nod to fix up ole Vino.
The mighty Vino will live another day.
Official 2005 Yamaha Vino 125 website
The Vino factory (literally 10 mins down the road)
Some guys road test review of a Vino 125
Taiwan Train Schedule Information Service
