Here in Kazakhstan, even 2nd hand cars are still relatively expensive. I will never forget my first ‘bargain basement’ car - it had no door locks, there was no 3rd gear, the boot would open itself if nudged, and I eventually had to carry 16 litres of water with me every day, as it leaked onto the road whenever I was in a traffic jam on a hill! That said, it only cost me $100, and it took me all over Western Britain and Wales, when I was a credit card engineer, so I can hardly complain.
A couple of times the alternator played up on it, so I also carried jump leads, though if I had known about the no cable jump product, I perhaps would have not had so much hassle each time the battery was flat.
Although I do have my international drivers licence, as long term readers will remember, I have vowed to not drive on a daily basis. Why? Primarily, the driving over here scares the crap out of me - in the same way that British people will stand in a queue in an orderly manner, in England, people rarely swerve across lanes, nor cross a double white line. Over here, the driving style matches their ‘queueing’ style - first come, first served, and a little bit of pushing, shoving & general brinkmanship is required. Secondly, we don’t own a car, so driving is not really possible right now anyway… If I do ever lose my mind, and decide to try and drive here, a Rules of the Road Driver’s Ed DVD would be quite useful, if a Kazakh specific one exists at all. If we had lived in Almaty a few years back, I know for a fact that I could have just bought a Kazakh license, which does scare me a little when you look at the amount of traffic now on their roads.