Rickshaws have been banned in lots of places in China but if you still want a daily dose of potentially lethal transport you can catch a taxi for a pittance.

 In many cities you can circumnavigate downtown and surrounding areas a good dozen times for no more than a couple of euros, and if you’ve got a sunburned bum you might opt to just leave a pound of flesh as payment – but besides the vinyl seats, Chinese taxis are lethal in any number of other ways.

Contrary to what careful observation may lead you to believe, there are in fact painted lanes on most roads here, but these seem to be more of a gentle suggestion than something strictly adhered to. On any given road you’ll find at least ten lanes of traffic, all of them rakishly veering around on haphazard courses, interspersed with various wheeled contraptions that could have passed for bikes in the sixteenth century and tractors laden with several dozen hangers-on and associated livestock.

The drivers, too, are encumbered by their foot-long thumbnails, which indicate that they don’t engage in manual labour – it appears that getting out and pushing when your engine falls out or your tyres go bung doesn’t fall into this category. All of them have ID cards plastered inside the front window with photographs that look uncannily identical and all suspiciously like Jacky Chan, and indeed there’s a certain uniformity to the way none of them quite grasp that we don’t understand Cantonese, or at least seem perfectly at ease with chatting away endlessly to quizzically mute passengers.

Finally, the roads will be especially gratifying to anyone who likes circumnavigating the city and its outlying areas a dozen times before arriving two hours late to their destination.