Story and photos by Ian Stalker
Antigua’s Elroy Emanuel serves as something of a historian, botanist, tour guide and operator of a type of transportation that would seemingly be more at home on the streets of a major city half a world away.
The transport is a tuktuk, a three-wheeled vehicle designed to maneuver through the notorious traffic of Bangkok, Thailand. Emanuel is with the tour company Rock Adventures Antigua, which includes among its offerings tutktuk tours that showcase both urban and rural Antigua.
Rock Adventures Antigua’s fleet of brightly colored tuktuks — imported from Bangkok — have cushioned seating and plastic sheeting that’s rolled up on sunny days and lowered on rainy ones, keeping passengers dry.
“It’s more open than a van. You feel like you’re closer to nature,” Emanuel says.
Rock Adventures Antigua’s tuktuk operators are given a lengthy course on operating the vehicles before being cleared to take people on tour.
Although tuktuks can top 60 miles per hour, Rock Adventures Antigua clients will travel at a much slower pace, enabling them to take in the scenic island’s sights, among them historical structures, including a longstanding prison that Emanuel reports has at times had to deal with overcrowding. (“You sleep standing up.”)
The affable Emanuel — who frequently waves at island residents he knows during his tours — also likes to point out different plants, including Antiguan pineapples.
He also points out the homes of people who have reached the age of 100 or more and is happy to share wise counsel on living long: “Eat from the ground,” with those who grow their own food, avoiding unhealthy preservatives.
Antigua is also home to 365 beaches, prompting locals to declare they have a beach for each day of the year and Emanuel to tell his clients before they set off that he’s “going to show you a little bit of paradise.”
Emanuel says he and his colleagues frequently park their tuktuks at a cruise ship port when a ship is docking. The Asian transportation quickly attracts a crowd when passengers disembark.
And Emanuel’s colleague Ray Pile says if he ever visits the Thai capital he’ll be certain to hop into a tuktuk.
“That would be my first mode of transportation,” he says of riding a tuktuk in Bangkok. “I would be really excited to do that.”
