Sunday, August 9, 2009

Motorbike driving license

After criss-crossing Nepal and Thailand on motorbikes we decided to legalize our motor biking status and signed up for driving school. We liked the feeling of riding a motorbike so much that basically it was just a question when we could do it.

We have a couple of favourite destinations where we want to ride the bike and doing it with a driving license made more sense. Especially from the safety point of view (getting a driving license should have in theory helped). Anyway we have Brazil as one of our favourites. There is no question that we are going to do it again in Nepal. India is also quite tempting but I am not sure we are ready for that. The highlight in that region could be though Bhutan. I have just read in a German motorbike magazine about tours there. This could probably me the highlight !!!

As to the driving license - obviously it costs one fifth of what we would need to pay in Germany or anywhere west from Polnad. We are more than half way through and we finally understood why people in Poland drive like crazy. I would dare to say that they basically have no idea what proper driving is supposed to look like since nobody ever taught them about it.

The theory lessons instead of at least 10 hours took us around four hours and to large extent had nothing to do with riding a motorbike. Rita had to sit there though she did not understand a word - nobody was concerned - most important thing was the fact that she was physically there. Our practice lessons are of the same quality. We are told what we need to do during the state exam and basically left alone to practice. We have never heard the word technique or safety. It is seriously a joke. It costs next to nothing but also provides you with nothing. As Rita summed it up - we have learned more in Nepal during our half a day course with a Dutch instructor than during the month of the "Polish" driving course.

If everything goes well we will have our motorbike driving license by the end of September - in terms of skills however we will stay where we were. Unfortunately. Some things seem not to change in this country...