The main differences on the roads between South East Asia and the UK are the huge number of scooters and motorbikes and the fact that the time of the day does not seem to make much difference to the volume of traffic. Maybe this is due to the lack of walking which I will mention later.

Scooters and motorbikes are everywhere with the number of riders ranging from 1 to 4 and the number of helmets for those riders usually ranging from 0 to 1. Having said this we have thankfully only seen 1 minor accident so far, maybe because the car drivers constantly beep their horn when overtaking the 2 wheeled road users, to let them know they are there and encourage them to stay left (everyone drives on the left in the countries so far). Bikes also beep their horn when overtaking other bikes so roads are pretty noisy.

Having said this, the surface of the main roads all seem to be in far better condition than pothole Britain as I think it was called when we left. Having less temperature extremes makes roads easier to maintain I am sure but it did make me feel envious of their road surface.

Pip and I like to walk around a place where we can as we feel you see more, learn more and meet more people, particularly in countries where the people are so friendly, engaging and interested to meet others. Walking puts us in a minority and is probably why pavements seem something of an afterthought compared to the roads.

There are pavements, no pavements, holes in pavements, massive steps up to pavements and of course, cars and bikes parking on any bit of pavement they fancy. If you have any physical limitations I can only imagine how difficult it is to get around and it probably explains why we have only seen 1 wheelchair user in our travels so far.