The Blue Romance Coffee Shop

Loading the bikes on the boat

It's all about tourism today.  Gwyne gave me a pass from my manservant duties to go out on a bike tour, so I took the shortest one available from SpiceRoads cycle tours (www.spiceroads.com) which was the jungle tour and took us through the streets of Bangkok and across the river.  For B1000 ($32), it was totally worth it.  Supplied are a bike (of questionable quality, in my case), helmet, water and an English speaking guide.  Our guide's name was Bottle and he was great.  Unfortunately, my phone battery died, so I couldn't save the GPS map from the Cyclemeter app that I like to use.  The ride starts out at the Blue Romance coffee shop off of Soi 38 and takes you about 5K through the streets of Bangkok.  That was kind of hairy.  But very quickly, you get from the big fancy streets and shops to the back streets of Bangkok which are not nearly as well kept as the front streets of Bangkok which are really not that well kept to start with.  Places I've certainly never seen before, and that gave a real insight as to where the GDP distribution comes from.

Long tailed boat from one side of BKK to the jungle...

You get what you pay for, and while that $32 may be a big chunk of change to many Thais, it doesn't buy a lot of safety.  There was a quick briefing about signs used (turn signals, pointing to the ground when there might be a hazard, like dog poop) and when we should ride single file and I will say this - the drivers on the street were great - they gave way to us as a group and were super polite.  But helmet use was not mandatory and we were, after all, cycling on the streets of Bangkok and we had to cross a number of very well trafficked streets.  And this trip, I was most pleasantly surprised to see a real bicycling culture in Bangkok - quite a few cyclists putting themselves out there along with the buses, tuk-tuks, cars and motorcycles.  Progress.  And then we got to the boat that took us across the river.   I'm a very good swimmer, so that didn't phase me at all, but this boat, loaded up with 14 bicycles and 14 people I didn't know and 0 life preservers, well, that did give me a tiny pause for thought.  We crossed the river, unloaded the bikes and set off.  Bottle tells us that the path is mostly about one to one and a half meter wide.  Be very careful.  Don't ride with one hand while taking a picture with the other hand.  You might fall in and there is water on either side.

And there most certainly was.  Most of the ride (about 25 km) was on the concrete path, on the other side of Bangkok, quiet, picturesque, and a bit on the warm side, even though it was the perfect temperature for Bangkok, overcast and not in the summer. I took up the rear position, I'm an avid cyclist and there are usually two guides in the group, one in the front to lead and one in the rear to ensure that no one gets left behind or lost.  The rear guide went somewhere else with a different group and I'm not a big fan of getting lost in foreign countries (although I have done more than my share of that) so I took that role on.   I know that if the ride was my gig, I would have taken phone numbers of people riding so that if they did take a wrong turn, I'd be able to contact them - I like logistics, I like processes. The ride was very nice, through a lovely jungle, so very welcome after my return to Kuwait, which features very little in the way of foliage.  There is some green in the Kuwaiti flag, but that's about it. On our ride?  Lots of coconuts, jackfruit trees, mango, papaya and unidentified greenery.  Nice.  There were also many dogs, but they were the most docile dogs I have ever come across as a cyclist.  We did have to lift our bikes over two very large dogs that were sleeping on the way across the river (and the same two on the way back - didn't look as if they had moved at all) and weren't barked at or chased by any other of the motley crew of canines that crossed our paths.

Taken from my phone, while riding with one hand

The raised concrete path made for an interesting ride and the houses in the jungle, connected to the path by wood planks were a world apart from Bangkok. There was the occasional ubiquitous 100cc motorcycle on the path we all had to stop for, but we did get to a lovely floating market - the first one I had ever been to in Thailand.  This was not at all touristy - there was a group of older people singing karaoke and it looked like the only farangs to be found there were our group.  Additionally, all of the people we passed on our ride seemed very happy to see us - lots of hello's, sawadee kaps and smiles, so the route must not be that well worn yet.

As I was a floating market virgin, I enjoyed the short break we took there to buy snacks and stroll through the market.  If you're in Bangkok and have an interest in taking this trip, I'd recommend a few tweaks on this trip - pack cycling shorts, a lightweight jersey, bring gloves and have a decent level of competence on a bicycle. As we were riding, and I watched the guy in front of me suffer through a number of fits and starts, I couldn't imagine that everyone made this trip without a miscue - someone must have not made one of the many, many, many 90 degree angle turns and fallen into the swampy, Burmese python riddled water (that's speculation on my part, but it was the jungle tour after all) and not all of the trips over the side were short drops.  I didn't know any of the people on the ride, didn't know what their skill levels were, and no attempts were really made to ascertain what mine was prior to the start of the ride.  So at the floating market stop, I asked Bottle how many people he had lost over the sides of the path.  He seemed to shiver, then smiled through his braces and said, "Many.  Many."  Although his English was quite good, I thought he may not have understood my question, so I asked the question a different way, and asked how many people had fallen off of the path and pantomimed falling down off a bicycle, and he said, "Many.  Very many."  But I'd do it again in a second.