Thursday, Aug 21, 2008
Wanderlust editor Don George talks with Lonely Planet founder and head Tony Wheeler about his new book, 'Chasing Rickshaws,' and the company's future plans as it celebrates its 25th year of publishing.
Oct 23, 1998 | I knew Tony Wheeler before he knew me. Twenty years ago, when I was wanderlusting around Asia, Tony and Maureen Wheeler's "Southeast Asia on a Shoestring" was my constant companion. Dubbed the "Yellow Bible" by backpackers, that intrepid and imaginative alternative guidebook became the foundation of the now globe-girdling Lonely Planet publishing empire. Tony was in San Francisco recently promoting the newest Lonely Planet title, "Chasing Rickshaws," his own celebration of Asia's people-powered transport, which Wanderlust excerpted yesterday. He stopped by our office to talk about the book and Lonely Planet's other projects as the company celebrates its 25th year.
What first inspired you to do "Chasing Rickshaws"?
We only first thought of the book five years ago -- the idea of tracing rickshaws around Asia and seeing where they came from, what their story was and where you still found them. It was a combination of a genuine interest in them and wanting to track down this little corner of Asian history before it disappeared completely. What also interested me was how colorful they were and how the riders -- as well as the people who used them -- were interesting characters.
Do you remember the first time you ever saw a rickshaw?
I had thought it was when I was traveling in Asia in the early '70s, but the other week I was going through my mother's photo album, and I found a photograph of me sitting in a rickshaw in Pakistan when I was a child. So it goes way back.
How did you decide which countries to include?
That was part of the problem with this book. Some places were obvious -- like Hong Kong, because the rickshaw is dying out there, and Bangladesh, because there are more there than anywhere else in the world. And we had to go to Rangoon because the ones in Rangoon and other parts of Burma are totally unique. We could have gone on and on with Asian cities, but we decided to do 12 -- this gave us the variety we wanted and enabled us to cover all the basic types of rickshaws. There are basically four or five types, and although there are modern ones in San Francisco, San Diego, Oxford, England, and Berlin, we decided to focus on the older ones found in Asia.
You had to cover so much ground for this book. Did you take one long trip, or --?
We wanted to do it in different seasons, so we did the book in three trips. We deliberately chose going to India during the monsoon, because we wanted to get shots of rickshaws in the rain. But there we were, in the middle of the monsoon season, and it just didn't rain. Finally, on our last afternoon, it just bucketed down, and that was perfect because we got just the shots we wanted. Also, we wanted to go to Beijing in the winter, so we decided that we'd leave Beijing for the last trip, so we'd get there and it would be cold.
Did people open up to you once they found out what you were doing -- devoting a whole book to this type of transportation?
That was really one of the most surprising and pleasant things about it -- as soon as they found out that I really had a genuine interest, and that I wasn't just going to be there for only five minutes taking photographs, they were amazingly open about it. They got really into it. When we were in Yogyakarta, the very first place we went to, we agreed to take these two rickshaws for the whole afternoon. And once we got talking to the riders and asked, "Where do they make these?" -- 15 minutes later, we were at a rickshaw factory. It was just perfect, and very photogenic. And in Hanoi, someone said, "Have you seen the place where they take the confiscated ones?" and we said, "Where?" and 10 minutes later, there we were.
Historically, when were rickshaws most prevalent?
Well, yaks were the dominant form of transport for a while. Then there was a time between the horse carriages and the start of the railways, buses and trams when the rickshaw was the No. 1 means of transport. It's interesting why they never caught on in Europe: Partly it's because in Europe there wasn't enough money to pay for more sophisticated personal transport, and at that time, technology wasn't good enough -- the roads weren't smooth enough for them, and there wasn't steel for making spoked wheels and things. In Asia, it just happened that the economy and technology were each at the right stage -- the two coincided. The other thing that's interesting about it is that it's one of the very first examples of Japanese technology spreading to other places. Although it probably wasn't a Japanese person who invented it, it seems clear that the rickshaw was invented in Japan.
Who did invent it?
The general consensus is that it probably was an American missionary who invented it for his wife. But very quickly, other people saw the idea and perfected it. Before long there were Korean ones, Chinese ones and other ones -- but it was the Japanese ones that looked the best. And it was sort of a Toyota and Hyundai thing. You know, "What's a Hyundai? It's a Korean Toyota."
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