David on Formosa

While wandering around Banqiao this afternoon I stumbled across these beautifully restored rickshaws. While I have seen tricycle rickshaws in Taiwan before I was quite surprised to see the human-powered rickshaws alongside it. I have seen them operating in Calcutta, although according to Wikipedia they were officially banned in that city in November 2006 (I last visited in February 2004). They are still used in a few places in the world but only for tourists rather than as a real form of transport.

Cycle rickshaws are somewhat more common and still in use in many places around the world. According to Wikipedia and Taiwan Fun they are still used in Qijin Island in Kaohsiung City. The only other information I could find online about rickshaws in Taiwan was this thread at forumosa.com. If you scroll down you can see some photos I took last year of a restored rickshaw in Sanxia. I don't know when and where human-powered rickshaws were used in Taiwan. 

It is still quite common to see tricycles being used to transport goods and collect materials for recycling in many parts of Taiwan today. Although I always think that it is only older people who are still using them and it won't be long before their use dies out. 

This is the back of the cycle rickshaw on display in Banqiao. The licence plate uses a simplified character so I suspect the rickshaw may not actually be Taiwanese, but imported from China.  

This photo is of a rickshaw in Surat Thani, Thailand. They remain a very common form of public transport in many Thai towns.  

Please note: I also tried searching Google for "三輪車 台灣" but couldn't find much useful information. If anyone knows of some more useful links in either English or Chinese please leave a comment.