Fuel in Pop Bottles

Today's weather: High = 20 Low = 10
Sunny and just perfect

A friend foolishly parked his scooter outside the Starbucks near Gubei Carrefour for three days, actually the exact area I used to live in two years ago for my weekend apartment. Sure, he locked it, but it was still not a very smart move to leave a bike unattended for so long.

I'm paranoid about parking the bike and for good reason -- scooter theft is rampant in Shanghai or any major city in China for that matter. If it's parked overnight, it's always in a covered area underground with security cameras. Either in front of my housing compound, or at the school underground parking lot. I still double lock the bike. When I leave it on the street temporarily, i.e. I make sure it's for a short period of time, and never out of eyesight.

My friend learned the lesson when someone attempted to hotwire the scooter, and then the thief kicked it down to the ground after failing to start the motor. My friend discovered the bike lying on its side like that today. Then, after kick-starting the scooter due to a busted ignition, to his dismay, he wasn't able to turn off the motor!!!! So we took it down to the shop and the guys helped fixed the bike. That's where we learned that a thief had attempted to hotwire the bike.

At the shop they also asked, "You wanna buy some fuel?" Sheesh, these guys have everything!

The fuel was stored in pop bottles in the middle of the mess inside the shed, mixed in with engine parts and tools lying around all over the place -- a typical Chinese motorcycle shop.

The pop bottle fuel reminded me just like Thailand, for example Koh Chang. Pop bottles are the only means of getting fuel because there are no gas stations on the island.

How fitting that even in a major metropolis, you still find illegal fuel sold in pop bottles. But unlike Thailand, it's not sold openly on the street. It's hidden away in sheds, which is totally dangerous, due to the fire hazards!!! Predictably, the pop bottle fuel market started due to the crackdown on fueling up bikes at the gas stations.

Out of curiosity, we asked how much the fuel was. 60 RMB for a 2 Litre bottle of fuel, that is outrageous. With my fuel siphoning device and jerry can, I should go into this fuel business here, sell for reasonable profit margins due to all the demand, and make lots of money. You'd surely think there would be competition in this kind of open market, in the sense that other guys have already done this and have stashed a whole bunch of jerry cans of fuel in their apartment and are selling to customers.

Nah, I'm not doing this.