Old bike new life

I've already written about biking around with Eric, a guide in Borneo who showed me pontoons that locals make to harvest shellfish almost like a floating kitchen garden. When we were poking around the river, I looked down and saw a kids' bike on the bottom of the sandy riverbed.

Me: "Oh no, some poor kid lost his bike!"

Eric: "Don't worry, it's meant to be there."

Me: "Say what?"

Eric: "People throw scrap metal into the river to act like a fake reef. Little critters build their houses on the metal, and then the bigger critters have something to feed on."

Me: "So the bike is being used as a plankton habitat to attract the shellfish which people rely on for food?"

Eric: "Exactly. I've heard of people in America throwing whole buses into the water!"

My own pic of the underwater bike isn't so hot, but have a look at this intriguing Flickr pool dedicated to bicycles of a submarine nature, which includes the shot above which was taken by Koinis.