Ray's Report!

The one thing that has interested me here is the different mechanical equipment.
The first one is the small tractor with a large flywheel painted in Massey Ferguson Red! This is attached to a small trailer and seen hauling goods, equipment, people, blocks of stone, sand etc. Seen in the farming areas.

Then there are the 1/2 motorbike and trailer on one chassis - which looks like the mechanical equivalent of a centaur. Useful for mobile vendors. Seen out of the main cities. It is narrow so can go up farm lanes or drive through the small alleyways of the old villages.
Of course the tuk tuk tears around Beijing in their droves.

The bicycle rickshaw. Not so prominent this time in Beijing. But heaps here in Lhasa
And this one abounds in the rural areas and towns: It has an engine sitting on two wheels with long handles on which the gears and throttles sit. It has large flywheels for driving pumps etc and seem to have connection points for hydraulic equipment. So you seem them everywhere sitting nose down driving some sort of auxiliary equipment. Then it has a bar or two coming out the back which attaches to another piece of equipment with a seat and compartment and two wheels...and so you see these trailers carry anything from people to equipment to goods to farm supplies or produce . It actually looks like a topless carriage being drawn by a mechanical horse. And if course they are quite narrow so ideal for getting down the alleyways of these ancient towns - either as a two or four wheeler.

Finally there is the ubiquitous Stanley cart- probably not named after my brother, although that is the first time I saw one: when our dear Mother gave one to Stan for his birthday. They are basically two bicycle wheels supporting a large bucket or box with two handles stuck out the front in between which the hapless labourer drags the whatever around. Today we saw them using the Stanley cart for laying concrete a few floors up. Firstly the cart was filled with concrete from a mixer, then dragged over to a crane, hooked on with two hooks then hoisted up where it was pushed over to where required.

Looking out of our bedroom window we looked down on a flock of satellite dishes: bit of a strange shape they were more oblong than round but they were concave and you could see the receiver in the middle. In fact they looked like metal cormorants catching the suns rays. Anyway, there are many different things here so did not take much further notice until we passed a road gang on a seriously back road and they had a satellite antenna as well - but clearly no TV set. And then I saw it: the receiver was in fact a kettle!!! This was a solar powered stove. Our guide advised that a kettle would take 20 minutes to boil and that they also used it to cook meals and rice. They just needed to keep turning it to point towards the sun. They are also used in winter as they have a lot of sunlight.