More on my trip to Kuantan and something about New York's Yellow Cabs

As some of you readers may have read I was in Kuantan recently and this is a slightly more detailed write-up about it. Of course, I still left some bits out, mostly non-motoring. I took hundreds of shots, from a 16mp camera down to a 2mp camera phone. This mostly came from a 5mp camera phone as downloading a lot of 16mp photos takes up bandwidth and a chunk of my data plan. But what these photographs do is tell the story.

Click here to read about Kuantan.

And now, on something iconic. The yellow cabs in New York will be replaced in 2013 by Nissan Minivans. Sigh.

Click here to read more about it. Posted on MyAutoblog.org.

When In Kuantan Do As The Locals Do....A Drive On The Beach

It is pretty fun actually. Take a car right up to the water's edge,  do some figure eights (but do be careful that the front wheels don't dig or you might actually roll over), and some driving on the sand. The thing about the beach along Pantai Balok in Kuantan, Pahang is that the sand is pretty packed and not like the soft sand you get on some beaches. I also suppose this is because it was low tide and the waves on the East Coast pound the beaches over there pretty hard till the sand gets compacted. I know you can't do this on Batu Feringgi, Port Dickson (as it is actually hard to find an access road right to the beach with development everywhere) and some other beaches on the West Coast.

I believe that driving on the beach shouldn't be limited to watching TV shows like Top Gear doing it. We should do it too and if any of you skeptics start making statements like "that Perodua is going to rust after that". It won't. Firstly, it isn't a car from the 1970s, secondly it isn't an Alfa Romeo or a Fiat from the 1970s and thirdly, all new cars get decent galvanizing on their chassis these days and don't really rust. Let's also mention that I wasn't the only one doing it. Locals do it too. And if you don't know what galvanizing is, please look it up yourself.

And fourthly, if you've been following my blog, I have been telling you people that you should live a little. Buy a car you like, not because of resale value, and enjoy the car instead of keeping it at home while you take the bus or motorcycle to work. It's only metal so you don't have to treat it like a trophy for display only and it's the thrill of the driving experience that is most important. This is one of them, and as I also said, sometimes a driving experience isn't about the speed, or the power. This is one of them.