Once again, old, old photos taken with a cheap camera, but I find the content a treasure so I put up with the poor quality.
I don’t know what brand of vehicle this is, but I wonder if it’s something that was built in a backyard workshop. You can see that the vehicle up ahead is also a three-wheeler, but the blue one in the foreground looks like it has had some modifications.
One thing I wonder about is the stability of the vehicle. I can imagine that it isn’t particularly safe to go too fast around a corner or it could roll over.
Check out the license plate.
Several modes of transportation were popular.
Even the bus can have a mishap. The tools lying beside the flat tire tell the story. The driver has gone for help. Either that or he has left town. Perhaps in a three-wheeler. One less tire to go flat.
These photos were taken in Kalamata (known for its olives, although it should be known for its dogs that bark all night).
During both nights we spent in a campground in Kalamata in our VW van, once heading south and then, weeks later, heading north again, dogs in the neighbourhood barked for much of the night.
When I checked my journal that I kept in those days, I noticed that after I mentioned the dogs barking, I also made a comment about people walking around late at night. This seemed to be a common thing; women pushing their babies in strollers at 11 p.m., because it was at last cool enough to be outside. So maybe that’s what the dogs were barking at – all the people going for walks at night.



July 14, 2025 at 1:36 am
Dogs barking at night was part of my experience of living in NWT, especially when the Aurora was going. I remember scenes like yours from my visits to Greece. I love that licence “plate.” Sometimes you have to make do, that’s all there is to it!
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July 14, 2025 at 8:34 am
Exactly! They had a very easy-going attitude about a lot of things.
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July 14, 2025 at 3:59 am
Love old photos, Anneli, and how they reunite us with fond memories of past adventures.
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July 14, 2025 at 8:33 am
You can see that there must be a lot of memories attached to these old photos. Bad as the pictures are, I haven’t been able to delete them after 48 years.
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July 15, 2025 at 3:04 am
I understand! Between the ones on the hard drive and those in plastic tubs, we shrink-wrap our past lives. I love it when we can release those images to others, a momentary fluttering of who, what, when, and where. Occasionally, the why behind it all comes to the forefront.
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July 14, 2025 at 4:30 am
Oh boy, the dogs would make me crazy, I despise barking mutts! Don’t like dogs much these days… Gimme a cat! I’d say those karts were home brew designs.
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July 14, 2025 at 8:31 am
Right, right, and right, John.
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July 14, 2025 at 10:45 am
😂👍🏻
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July 14, 2025 at 7:05 am
Old photos are great, they hold so many memories. I love that licence plate 😊
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July 14, 2025 at 8:31 am
It says a lot about the attitudes of people who live in a country where it’s too hot to bother with strict regulations.
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July 14, 2025 at 7:24 am
Oh you are an adventurous soul! Your homemade car brought to mind Eustice Conway on History Channel’s Mountain Men. He showed viewers how he converted his gas powered car (because he couldn’t afford gas) to run on wood. Talk about homemade–but it worked!
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July 14, 2025 at 8:30 am
No, no, no, Jacqui. Those three-wheelers were just vehicles we saw when we were there in Kalamata. We had a VW van that we toured Europe with back then. On that particular day, we had parked and were on foot, being tourists, taking pictures. But yes, we were in awe of these unique vehicles (not that I’d want to ride in one).
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July 14, 2025 at 10:38 am
Electric cars are too-new-technology for me so I’d be in the VW with you.
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July 14, 2025 at 12:13 pm
Lots of room! Just remember that in those days, the standard bumper sticker was “Gas or ass. Nobody rides for free.”
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July 14, 2025 at 1:01 pm
Ha!
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July 14, 2025 at 7:40 am
The barking dogs would drive me crazy and inhibit my sleep. Cute photos and homegrown transportation!
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July 14, 2025 at 8:27 am
They kept us up most of the night. It was terrible, both times.
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July 14, 2025 at 8:16 am
Dear Anneli
Yes, people and even children go around at night because it’s incredibly hot during the day. We noticed this as well when Kb had to live in Greece.
We heard about an accident of a three-wheeler which rolled over on a sharp bend. Unfortunately, people who were sitting on the loading area got badly injured.
Thanks for showing your pictures
The Fab Four of Cley
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
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July 14, 2025 at 8:26 am
Ouch! I was hoping I was wrong about the stability, but still, I’m not surprised to hear this. Thanks for chiming in.
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July 14, 2025 at 9:32 am
“Anderes Land, andere Sitten”. We loved the way they spend the (finally) cool nights outside. We didn´t go along with them and suffered in bed, listened to the noises and barking dogs, just stupid tourists! Thanks for sharing those pics. They brought me right back to Greece.
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July 14, 2025 at 10:14 am
Same here. It was all new to us.
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July 14, 2025 at 11:03 am
Seems disorderly. I remember your stories about driving in that van around Europe. Did you drive all the way to Greece from Europe? There were a lot of war-torn countries north of Greece. That must’ve been a trip for a lifetime for you two.
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July 14, 2025 at 11:04 am
I just realized I forgot to Delete the word “was” in my comment above. I started to ask something else and then stopped but forgot to delete it. 🤦♀️
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July 14, 2025 at 12:11 pm
No problem. Fixed it. Our trip was before the upheaval in Yugoslavia. It was still called Yugoslavia when we drove through it. Not a friendly place though, except for some country folk, who were the only ones to smile at us. Everyone else looked glum and unhappy and downright unfriendly. I guess they were very unhappy with how things were going in their country.
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July 14, 2025 at 1:14 pm
Interesting. So you actually drove through all that area to get to Greece?
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July 14, 2025 at 3:00 pm
We landed in London, bought a van in Amsterdam, drove it through Germany and Switzerland, and half way down Italy, took the ferry to Greece (2 nights, 3 days) and drove down the west coast of Greece. A couple of months later we drove back north on the east side of Greece, up through Yugoslavia, Austria, and Germany. Sold the van there and took the bus to Paris and then to St. Malo and the ferry back to the UK. Flew from London to Hawaii with stops in Chicago and San Francisco. After a few weeks on Kauai we flew back to Honolulu and back to the Queen Charlotte Islands via Vancouver. We’d been gone for five months. Fun times.
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July 14, 2025 at 7:38 pm
Wow. What a whirlwind trip! And then 3 weeks in Kauai. What an adventure. Memories to last forever. Thanks for sharing that.
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July 15, 2025 at 3:58 am
It was memorable, but it was also nice to get home after all that time.
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July 15, 2025 at 11:31 am
I believe that. I’m glad to be home when I’m just gone for a few days.
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July 15, 2025 at 9:36 am
This post is entertaining with not only the 3-wheelers, but you camping in your van in olive country. I love those olives, but dogs barking all night? Not so much, and yet, you make a good point about people walking around at night. Stimulation for the dogs. 🙂
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July 15, 2025 at 10:49 am
Night life was pretty quiet there except for the dogs, and that was probably because they were disturbed by people walking by so late at night. I remember mothers pushing little kids in strollers, singing softly to them. It was a part of the day (night) when the air was a perfect temperature, and the only reasonable time to go out for a walk. Different times then. Now you’d be taking your life in your hands to go out for a lonely walk with your toddler after 11 p.m. But back then it was quite safe.
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