Then....there was this Vespa Piaggio 150cc scooter

Folks....

By now I could afford a brand new scooter. A Vespa Piaggio 150cc with Trengganu plate number TA 2135. It has a rotary valve engine, with 4 speed gear transmission, can travel top speed 85 KPH or 50 MPH. I bought it out of necessity. I have no other choice. Ideally I should help myself with a Ducati Motorcycle. A sporty and rugged piece of machine. Ducati Motorcycle was the statement of the time. Norton or Triumph motorbikes once ruled the road had lost their appeal for ‘the young & the wild one’ like us.
Why then, I offted for a Vespa Piagio 150cc. Am I out of my mind or lack of cash?
Firstly the prize of a 350cc Ducati was a bit too stiff. Secondly as a youth, I was of ‘the tame type’, not the ‘the wild ones’. Thirdly I bought the Vespa out of necessity because of its economic nature and the need to travel to and from school along Kuala Trengganu - Ulu Trengganu trunk road, a distant of 60 plus miles daily. The cost of public transport and bicycle daily rental were burning holes into my pockets. The bus ride from Kuala Trengganu to Wakaf Tapai alone would cost 60 cents one way. Then there was the need to hire a bicycle for kampong journey from Wakaf Tapai to Kampung Tanggol – a distant of not less than 7 miles, through rubber plantations and rice fields. That’s another 60 cents. Totalling a RM1.80 travelling budget per day. The only light and economical transport that I could think off was a 150cc scooter. Vespa Scooter could take the rough journeys, with minimum petrol consumption. A full tank petrol costing RM2.50, more than enough for a couple of days trip from Kuala Trengganu right to my school in the rural of Ulu Trengganu.
It was early 1963. I was on my first year teaching after graduating from College. With a mere RM250.00 monthly basic salary, and being posted in the far corner of the East Coast Malaysia, I need all the cash I could earn to support my hungry family I left behind in the Lower Perak District on The West Coast as well my daily expenditures away from home.
So Vespa Piaggio 150cc was a good alternative.
For a couple of years later the Vespa Piagio was my prized possession. Another was my portable Olympia Typewriter. Both were bought on my 2nd months in Trengganu. Both served me well, as a teacher and a freelance writer. A strange combination: true to the fact that I soon found my niche in creative writings positioning myself as a radio playwright hailed from the East Coast Malaysia that ruled the airwaves of Radio Singapura (1963-1966). I owed my early success to the slow cruising scooter drive to my place of work daily, and the humble typewriter faithfully waiting for me on my writing desk at home.
A scooter drive, normally smooth and leisure. At any time you hardly touch the maximum speed of 50 MPH. Vespa Scooter was not built for hell driving. Less manly, but comfortable. The 30 plus odd miles travel would take around 60+ minutes, each way cruising along the scenic Terengganu road.
Riding the scooter maked my idle mind positively encroached into thinking and watching lives went by around you. The bare bodied farmers ploughing their padi fields, the rubber tapers, the fisherman idled by the Monsoon Torrential Rain, the oddjob labourers, the petty traders, the land owners, women in the marketplaces, bystanders, loafers and gamblers gambling their daily earnings …..these are characters on the landscapes I passed through everyday. Their way of life indirectly influenced me, in my writings.
I wrote weekly radio plays for Radio Singapura, and periodically contributed short stories and articles for DBP, Utusan Malaysia & Berita Harian publications. It was a lucrative undertakings, as well fullfilled my burning desires in creative writings.
The Vespa Piaggio 150cc has been faithful to me. Undeterred, during school term holidays I rode the machine for a daylong distant journey from Kuala Trengganu, through Kuantan, Bentung, to Kuala Lumpur, then through Kuala Selangor along the costal road to Hutan Melintang and arriving at my village Tanjung Bayan, Hilir Perak some 14 to 16 hours later. Never once the engine breakdown, except that, I need to change the sparks plug anytime it got stalled in the yearly monsoon floods of the East Coast Malaysia.All along I made thousands scooter hours riding my Vespa Piaggio 150cc. By Allah’s grace, I was never involved in accident. So Vespa Piaggio 150cc was a good choice
for 'the young ones' like me. I never regret owing one.....though I got this crazy feeling of abandoning it for a more powerful machines, every time a Ducati 350cc overtook me. But then again, there were other considerations binding me.