Sunday Morning Solo Ride

Posted on 11 March 2009 by christao408

Sunday morning I set out about 6:30 for another bicycle ride, this time solo since none of my other fellow cyclists was available. I traveled the usual route – about 50 km roundtrip (a bit more, actually) from Thong Lo out to Minburi and return.

This time I explored a few new side streets out in the countryside, discovering a way to get “back to nature” more quickly. Sure enough, I was able to arrive at rice paddies and quiet canals a good 5 km earlier than usual.

On the way out to the ride site, I follow alongside the airport expressway. It isn’t the most scenic part of the route but the frontage road has wide shoulders and is smoothly paved. That counts for a lot. Along the way I pass a couple of large mosques. Since Islam forbids the depiction of animals or humans in artwork, mosques are instead decorated with gorgeous geometric patterns and architectural flourishes. This one is fairly basic in design but I still think the lines are so graceful.

Where the expressway intersects with the outer ring road there are many new housing developments, gated suburban communities that wouldn’t seem so out of place in Los Angeles, except for the lotus flowers in a pond outside the gate.

Not long after taking the above picture, I found myself riding through rice fields, down small rural sois with unfriendly dogs, and on a narrow elevated concrete path two meters above a peaceful canal. I dismounted to take this picture, managing to catch my riding shorts on the bicycle seat and pulling a muscle in the process.

Continuing a few kilometers down the road I came across an area where people dump a lot of garbage, particularly the insulation from old refrigerators and other appliances. Judging from the scorching on the ground, it looks like they dispose of this garbage by burning it. What a terrible shame!

This area out in Minburi is a beautiful place to ride. However, since my bicycle rack for the car broke a few weeks back, I’m forced to ride all the way out here. By the time I’ve fit that 50 km in, I haven’t much energy left for exploring! Maybe I need to eat a proper breakfast before I start out. Normally I just have a bowl of soup noodles along the way.

The Bike Ride that Unexpectedly Doubled in Length

Posted on 1 February 2009 by christao408

Peter, who is visiting from Suzhou, mentioned that he would enjoy going out for a bike ride and seeing some of the rural outskirts of Krungthep. I borrowed Markus’ bike (since he’s moved off to Germany and isn’t using it) and cajoled Stuart into joining us for what I promised would be only a 30 km ride in Minburi.

Located just north of the new airport, Minburi is a largely rural community with a large population of Muslim families. Rice growing is the main industry there and that means lots of wide open places to ride. The night before the ride I mapped out the route and actually drove part of it, to confirm that the streets were wide enough and smooth enough to safely ride.

Sunday morning came. The three bicycles were loaded onto the bike rack and about forty minutes later we pulled into the grounds of a temple under the flight path of jets landing on Suvarnabhumi Airport’s east runway. With just a few minutes of pedaling, we left the wide, traffic-choked city streets behind and were out in the country. We could have been 300 km away from the city, not just 30.

We explored several dead end lanes, crossed several small canals, and even followed an elevated concrete footpath along one of the canals, where an old man and young boy who were fishing advised us to take the next bridge and ride through the local one-lane village.

We continued along the path until it came to an end, crossing a very rickety looking bridge. Below, Stuart treads a steady path, knowing his bike won’t float in the canal below.

After about two hours we had completed a nice 31-km circuit. After loading the bicycles back on the rack, we set out for home. Very shortly, though, we encountered problems. The plastic pieces on the rack that lock the bicycle rack’s arms perpendicular to each other, failed. Despite having spaces for three bicycles on the rack, the plastic could not handle the weight of the bicycles and the edges of the fasteners actually bent, resulting in the bicycles’ tires dragging on the road.

We quickly pulled over to the shoulder and evaluated the situation. There wasn’t a way to fix the rack right there and there wasn’t a way to get the bicycles into the car or even into the trunk of a taxi. And I wasn’t going to abandon my guests and make them ride back to the city on their own.

I called Tawn and he took a taxi out to rescue us, my knight on a white stallion. He drove the car back home and I led the ride back to the city, and additional 30 km that we weren’t originally planning on.

Along the way we stopped for lunch at a newly-opened restaurant with a rooftop terrace. Nice breezes and two bottles of Singha beer eased the discomfort a little before we returned to the road. Below, Stuart and Peter stop for some fresh-squeezed sugar cane juice. Who needs Gatorade?

Finally, about 3:00 – some seven hours after picking up Stuart and Peter – we returned home. Thankfully, we had some sunscreen and plenty of water, so other than some sore muscles, we weren’t too much the worse for wear.

Wet Critical Mass

Posted on 25 April 2008 by christao408

Friday night was the third Critical Mass ride here in the City of Angels. After two days of stormy weather, the rain had cleared mid-afternoon, the streets had dried, the weather was still a little cool and breezy and it was looking like the stage was set for a pleasant ride.

By the time I reached the TOT (Telephone of Thailand) building on Phloenchit Road, the clouds were forming in the early evening sky and it smelled of rain. About thirty riders gathered, all Thais except for one other farang, down significantly from the two hundred-plus riders at the first Critical Mass ride in February. Barely a mass, much less critical, in my opinion.

We set off just after seven o’clock and within five minutes were riding on wet pavement. Chasing the storm, we rode onto increasingly wet pavement until catching up to the raindrops. From mist to droplets to a full downpour, the group continued to ride, LED head and tail lights reflecting in the puddles.

There was a certain romance to it. It was warm and tropical and everyone was entirely soaked through and we kept riding, weaving through the stuck traffic, ringing our bells and bringing some visibility to the rights of cyclists.

After about forty minutes we arrived at the Taksin Bridge pier, where tourists catch the river taxis. There, under the concrete canopy of the bridge, the group stopped for a break. I visited with fellow riders, several of whom are instructors at one of the arts colleges. It was nice to be able to communicate well enough to carry on conversations and to make, and understand, jokes. Thank goodness for people who are willing to speak clearly, speak slowly, and rephrase their words when I don’t understand. And who avoid idioms.

Ride finds combines and, eventually, Hell

Posted on 6 April 2008 by christao408

Sorry for the delay in writing. My computer’s hard drive, which I swear I’ve been cleaning up and organizing all along, nonetheless reached 95% capacity and until I offloaded some of the contents onto DVDs and external drives, I was unable to edit the video I wanted to attach to this entry. I finally had some time to do that and am ready to write this post. For some reason, I just can’t allow myself to post too out of order so various events from this week will trickle out over the next few days.

Last Sunday morning, Stuart, Markus and I went riding in Minburi. There was a 70km ride scheduled with the Thai Cycling Club in an area south of the city, but those rides move really slow and make lots of stops. Not wanting to be beholden to a hundred other people, we opted to set out on our own.

This was Stuart’s second ride with me and his first as a proud owner of a new bicycle. The previous day he had rented a bicycle from Spiceroads, a company that does very good bicycle tours. He was so dissatisfied with the quality of the rental bike that when he met me at the bicycle shop for a little browsing he had, unbeknownst to me, already decided to buy. And I thought I’d have to cajole him a little!

The ride site was, as usual, the rice paddies and surrounding countryside in Minburi and Nong Chuk, northeast of the city although still within the Khrungthep province, pictured right. It took about an hour to get there, since we were looking for a well-placed wat (temple) at which we could park.

We did find a quiet country wat and pulled in and took the bikes off the rack. I asked a dek wat – literally a “temple child” or assistant to the monks, who in this case is a man in his fifties – whether it would be okay to park there for a few hours. He said it would and when I asked whether he had ever had any farang bicycle riders come through the wat, he surprised me by saying that it happens a few times a month. He also kindly suggested I move my car to a spot that would be in the shade when I returned and asked me to make sure the doors were locked.

We set out along the northern of the two roads that border khlong San Saeb, the same canal that the canal taxi boats run along inside the city. From there we headed down some small soi that led through vaguely residential areas. These roads are familiar territory as I’ve been down them several times before. We worked our way to “the invisible lake”, below, a rather sizeable body of water that doesn’t appear on either my road atlas of the greater Khrungthep area or on Google Maps, although the satellite view does show it.

The lake is on private property, which is probably why it doesn’t appear on the maps, but there is no fence so Markus suggested that we try to ride around it. I’m always a little hesitant to leave public roads and venture onto private property. While Thais in general aren’t the shotgun-toting type, I’m a big believer in property rights and respecting them.

We headed out and found the path pretty rough and, about a quarter way around (a little past the promontory you see in the picture) the paths became impassable and because of some reverse irrigation, very muddy. Actually, the gears and brakes of my bike were clogged with mud and straw making it necessary to do some dirty cleaning.

Along the way, we encountered some cows. Taking care to not spook them, as getting gored by a cow is not my idea of fun, I stopped to take a few pictures of a trio of calves who were resting nearby, left.

They were really cute. When Tawn saw this picture he announced that he wanted to adopt them.

We continued, leaving the lake and more developed areas behind for the open rice fields of Nong Chuk. Before you know it, the trees and scattered houses (many no more than shacks) gave way to a view of endless green meeting the big sky a long and hazy way off.

In the midst of this we stopped to investigate a park that is under construction, below. Being built by the local Buddhists in a largely Muslim corner of the province, it will eventually become a wat but for the time being will be a park honoring a revered monk. Much of the compound is being built in a basin that looks like it might have been intended as an irrigation lake. Speaking with the construction foreman, I discovered he was proficient at English so I asked a few questions, answered a few questions, and enjoyed the ice water his wife offered us.

Below, architectural detail of the statue that is being constructed in the picture above. While I originally assumed it would be an image of Buddha, as is the white one in the saffron colored robe, it turns out it will depict a revered monk.

In front of the statue was a platform that had been set up with offerings, above. It seems that there had been a ceremony the previous day (or maybe earlier that morning) to dedicate the whole affair.

The flower arrangements were amazing, depicting many traditional forms and mythical creatures. The main one, pictured right, has a bull on top (a nod to Brahmanism) with the creatures depicting the Chinese zodiac around the base.

This was the centerpiece of the offerings, a white cloth suspended overhead on a network of white strings that connected all the offerings to the new statue.

These strings are used in Buddhism, during various ceremonies, to literally connect participants to a venerated object like an image of the Buddha, in essence combining their collective prayers. Sort of a Buddhist prayer daisy-chain.

In the picture below, the image of Buddha is shown in a traditional seated posture with a multi-headed naga, or mythological deity in serpent form, forming a protective hood over him.

As the story goes, the naga Muscalinda protected Siddhartha Gautama as he meditated under the bodhi tree. After forty-nine days the heavens clouded over and it rained for seven days. Muscalinda sheltered Gautama from the elements as he attained enlightenment, becoming the supreme Buddha (or “Awakened One”) of our age. How’s that for a little Buddhist history you may not have known?

In any case, the detail of this arrangement is incredible. The heads of the naga are made of rolled leaves, the mouths lined with small purple flowers and the teeth made of jasmine. Only the tongues are not natural, made using red ribbon.

I’m fascinated at how there are so many elements of Buddhist mythology that trace back to Hinduism. No surprise of course, as Buddhism was born in a Hindu society and Gautama’s family would surely have been Hindu. But the liberal borrowing of creatures and stories is interesting.

We continued our ride and stopped for a bowl of noodles at a small nondescript restaurant at the intersection of two equally nondescript roads. Despite the unremarkable restaurant, the bowl of pork noodles was really tasty and at twenty baht would almost be worth a ride all the way back out there!

Heading north, I wondered about Wat Peuchamongkol, a temple I’ve been to on two previous rides with Spiceroads. It is a temple that has an amusement park-like depiction of heaven and hell. While I had the name written down, like the lake this temple didn’t appear on any maps.

Rather serendipitously we ran into it about fifteen minutes later, a stroke of luck and nothing more. I watched the bikes while Markus and Stuart went to hell and then, on my recommendation, heaven. Afterwards, we stopped at the vendors in the car park – this is something of a tourist attraction – and had cold drinks. Stuart fed the fish in the khlong to earn some merit.

This being summer break, the temple had plenty of naen – novices – running around. It is common for young men in Thailand to spend a period of time in the monkhood before their early twenties. This is done in order to earn merit for your parents, enabling them to be reborn in a better position – defined as being closer to enlightenment – in their next lives.

Traditionally, this is done during the rainy season when the monks would return from their wanderings to gather at the temples so as to avoid treading on newly-planted rice in the fields. In modern times, it is common to do it during school break, sort of a religious summer camp.

There were ten or so novices, four of whom are pictured right, playing around by the vendors, considering which treats they’d like to buy. While their heads and eyebrows were shaved and they’re undoubtedly receiving some religious instruction, they were behaving every bit like young boys: loud, rowdy, and aggressive. One of them had a small metal object in his hands and when I asked him what it was, he responded with the Thai word borrowed from English, la-zuh.

Sure enough, it was a small laser pointer. The boys all laughed as he projected a red spot on a fellow novice’s forehead, another interesting if unintentional allusion to the Hindu roots of Buddhism.

Riding in the countryside provides an unlimited number of opportunities to appreciate the blessings of my life. One was this couple paddling by the temple in their canoe, their stomachs distended, a possible symptom of hepatitis B.

It was a little past noon and the sun was hot and high. Even trying to drink a lot of water and reapply the sunscreen, it was getting uncomfortable, so we headed back towards the car which was still ten kilometers away. Along the way, even though according to the map we were still inside the province (although near the edge) we passed this “Welcome to Bangkok” sign, below. There’s quite a bit of growth on the sign that looks like moss. The sign does face north…

On the final stretch, we noticed a large amount of smoke rising from the fields to the east of us. We turned down into a small housing development – a single soi with shoulder-to-shoulder one bedroom single story houses – until we found the fire trucks. One of the locals explained that there was a grass fire behind the houses and the firemen were trying to fight it from there. One of the trucks left and we passed them later as they tried to find another path to the fire.

As we spoke with the residents, a small crowd of children gathered. The boys are always more outgoing than the girls, so when Markus pulled out his camera they ran up to pose for a picture, above. I made multiple copies of the photo today and will mail the copies to them, in care of the neighbor in the picture who gave me his address.

This is always the best part of exploring outside of Khrungthep. There are so many friendly people who are excited and curious about strangers: Where are you from? How long have you been here? How do you like Thailand?

I’ve never met a people who are more genuinely flattered that people choose to visit their country. The jaded natives of Khrungthep and tourist towns aside, Thais are generally very proud that their country is such a popular destination. I wish Americans were a bit more welcoming of visitors. The xenophobic streak that seems to be on the rise in the U.S. will only be detrimental to the country’s future.

Lest this descend into politics, let me conclude with a video of the rice harvesting we saw. This is the end of the primary rice growing season in Thailand and we saw a lot of combines while we were riding. Here’s a short bit about that:

Effective Public Awareness Spot

Posted on 26 March 2008 by christao408

Given the recent tragic accident in Cupertino, CA where two bicyclists were hit and killed by a sheriff’s deputy who dozed off at the wheel, the message in this public awareness spot is not only extremely effective, but extremely timely.

Thanks to Matt for posting the link to this YouTube video from another blog.

Sundays in the Park with Stuart

Posted on 17 March 2008 by christao408

It seems that things in the Khrungthep cycling scene are heating up, which has nothing to do with the coming hot season. It started with the first-ever Khrungthep Critical Mass on the final day of February. Then this past Sunday there was a 45-km trip around Khrungthep, about which I’ll write in a moment. It continues with a 160-km one way ride to Hua Hin this coming Sunday followed by the second Critical Mass the next Friday, and then a 70-km ride on March 30th that begins in Phra Padaeng on the southwest side of the river.

Crazy, huh? 160 km is way too much for me to do at this point as a one day trip. Maybe when the annual ride comes around next time. But I’m excited to see so much interest and enthusiasm in cycling in this City of the Perpetual Traffic Jam.

This past Sunday’s ride was a bit of a Tour de Khrungthep in the non-French sense of the word. About 150 riders met at National Stadium, which is just to the west of the Siam Square area. At 8:00 we headed out, stopping just a few minutes later at Hualamphong Railway Station for a tour – in Thai – from a docent. Hualamphong is a beautiful station and a good example of Thai Art Deco.

We then paid a visit to the Queen Saovabha Memorial Institute, a Red Cross-run “Snake Farm” whose primary purpose is to study and develop anti-venom serums for the many types of poisonous snakes found in the Kingdom. There is a fascinating and well-organized educational exhibit on snakes and you can see dozens of different poisonous and non-poisonous species.

Some people are really scared of snakes and other reptiles. I find them really fascinating. When I was in secondary school – I forget which grade, maybe seventh – we could check out a reptile for the weekend from our biology class. I brought a snake home and while it was interesting (I love the way they move), they really aren’t very fun pets.

Afterwards, we rode to Lumpini Park and on to the park next to Queen Sirikit Convention Center. This is where Markus and I often ride as it has a good 2-km dedicated bike path around the lake. Below, you can see the progress on the four towes of the Millenium Condo project between Sukhumvit 16 and 18. More on that in an entry here. Below that is an atist’s rendering of what the finished project will look like. Way, way out of scale to the skyline.

millennium_main2

After some pretty short legs, we finally started some serious distance riding, heading up Asoke Road to Ratchadapisek, cutting under the Rama IX expressway on a small local street, and then continuing up by the Thailand Cultural Center where we broke for lunch.

After lunch we continued up Ram Intra to Lad Prao, one of the main east-west arteries on the north side of the city, and then all the way to the very large and busy Phahon Yothin / Lad Prao intersection. Thank goodness we had a large group of riders still so we could command traffic as we made a series of turns to get to the far side of the de-facto traffic circle.

There we arrived at Railroad Park, a former State Railways of Thailand golf course that has been converted into a beautiful public park, below. Hard to imagine that this is in the teeming metropolis of Khrungthep, isn’t it?

By this point it was nearing 2:30 and the group was starting to thin out. People who lived on the northern side of the city headed home directly, while about thirty of us headed back towards National Stadium. This part of the ride took me through some areas that I’ve driven before but was not very familiar with, especially the frontage road that follows the railways tracks past Bang Sue station, parallel to the Rama XI expressway. It was good to cover this area on bicycle because now I know it better. It is also easier to navigate on bicycle because you can ignore the forced left turns that keep cars from using the frontage road as a raceway/shortcut.

Returning to National Stadium wasn’t really the end of it for me, as I still had to bike home. All told, the ride worked out to be about 65 km for me, the longest I’ve done since I moved to Thailand.

Fortunately, I was not alone for the trip.

Since Markus had church to attend, I drummed up another riding companion, Stuart.

He’s expressed interest in going for a ride before and this was certainly the one to give him a taste (a big, heaping taste) of what urban riding is like here. By the end of it he seemed pretty positive about the experience, so maybe he’ll be heading to ProBike and spending some money soon!

Stuart’s blog entry about the ride, along with a map of the route, is here.

Critical Mass Recap

Posted on 29 February 2008 by christao408

Friday evening I pumped up my bicycle’s tires, changed the batteries in my head and tail lights, strapped on my helmet and started pedaling down Sukhumvit Road towards Siam Square. The last Friday of the month is payday in Thailand, jokingly called a national holiday. The roads are packed more than usual as everyone goes out to celebrate having money again.

It took me nearly thirty minutes to ride the six kilometers, weaving through traffic, riding a few very short stretches (slowly!) on the sidewalk, and ultimately arriving at Siam Discovery Centre just before 6:30. There I found more than a hundred bicycles parked on the sidewalk, a hundred bicyclists milling about, with more arriving every minute.

Not recognizing anyone, I stood about taking in the scene. As has happened before with Thai bicycling events, the locals are very friendly. The ones less confident about their English just smile and nod, and within a couple of minutes I was engaged in conversation with a married couple. The wife had done her undergraduate degree in Ann Arbor, Michigan, while the husband had been a high school exchange student in – are you ready for this? – Moscow, Idaho.

Oh, and especially interesting, the couple cornered the reporter from the independent TV station (public broadcasting) and had her interview me – in Thai! Talk about a challenge. Don’t know if I made the evening news or not.

About 6:45 the now 200+ people saddled up and we headed out on our ride through the city. The route was less than 20 kilometers and with such a large group we were not moving very fast, covering the route in about two hours.

Throughout the ride I continued to make new friends, some farang who joined the group and some Thais. There really is a vibrant bicycling community here, which you wouldn’t necessarily realize.

This was the first time a Critical Mass ride has been undertaken in Bangkok and it had its own Thai flavor, combined with just some “inexperience” in what elements have made CM rides successful in other cities.

Unlike the leaderless rides at other CMs where the people at the front of the group sort of create the group’s direction on an ad hoc basis, this ride had a route map, police had been informed, and there was one man at the front wearing his bambo pith helmet – I believe he is the founder of the Thai Cycling Club – who was leading the way.

Also, there were some things that could have been done to keep the group together. We were regularly split up by traffic lights and lost much of the group in the first twenty minutes. Had there been some “safety monitors” who would block traffic in an intersection and let the group get through, it would have been a bit more effective.

But, hey, it was the first time and there isn’t a right or wrong way to do a ride. Thai cyclists can make it their own.

One realization I had, though, is that non-cyclists have a lot of misconceptions about bicycling in this city. “The traffic!” they say, ignoring the fact that the traffic largely isn’t moving and that on a bicycle, it is easy to get around larger vehicles stuck in a jam. “The heat!” they say, fogetting that when you are riding, you create your own cooling breeze. “The danger!” they say, not realizing that Thai drivers are the most patient, accommodating, and polite anywhere in the world. Not a honked horn, not a waved fist, not a foul word.

Can’t wait until next month’s ride!

When a Critical Mass is Reached

Posted on 24 February 2008 by christao408

After writing Thursday’s post about Rak Haeng Siam, a post which I had been writing in my mind for nearly two months, turning over thoughts and thinking about turns of phrase, I’ve found it difficult to write another post. It’s that silence that comes after you’ve said everything you have to say. It leaves me feeling empty and expended.

Maybe also it is because the weekend was a quiet one. Tawn was under the weather and I was pressed into service as a nurse, so there wasn’t anything to stimulate a new entry.

One thought, though: this coming Friday will be the first Critical Mass ride in Khrungthep. For those of you unfamiliar with this movement, it started in San Francisco in the early 1990s as a monthly group bicycle ride to celebrate bicycling and remind other users of the streets that bicyclists have a right to the roads, too. It has no organizers, usually no defined route, and the group just goes where it goes.

While some have seen it as a protest and some riders choose to be very confrontational with motorists, it is generally meant to be more of an awareness-raising opportunity as well as an opportunity to enjoy bicycling on the streets in numbers large enough to provide safety.

Even though there isn’t an organizer, someone on the Thai Cycling Club web board posted an entry announcing the event. And there are graphics in both Thai and English, so clearly someone has put a little effort into it.

In any case, I’m looking forward to this Friday evening and a chance to celebrate Leap Year and to see the City of Angels from my bicycle seat.

Bicycling from Bridge to Bridge to Bridge

Posted on 31 January 2008 by christao408

Sunday morning (maybe to work off the calories from Friday and Saturday’s dinners) I set out on a solo bicycle ride. I often ride on Sunday mornings with Markus, but he was out of town. Plus, urban riding doesn’t lend itself to groups. You can’t ride side-by-side and chat along the way, because the streets just aren’t wide enough.

There is some concern about the safety of riding in the city. For the most part, I think the concerns are over-stated. Drivers in Khrungthep pay attention and are used to sharing the road with motorcycles, tuk tuks, vendors with their food carts, and other non-automotive traffic.

The streets in some parts of Khrungthep are narrow, traffic is heavy, and road conditions can vary widely from freshly paved to potholed. The worst part, though, are the buses: they are large, their drivers are maniacs, and most of them run on very unclean diesel fuel, leaving behind a choking cloud of black particles.

Still, riding your bicycle is one of the best ways to get to see the city, giving you the flexibility to easily stop and explore, while letting you move quickly enough that you don’t wear out just within a few blocks. You can also recover from dead-ends much more easily when riding than you can when walking.

Sunday’s ride ended up taking about two-and-a-half hours to cover 42 km.

Starting at home on Sukhumvit Soi 53, I wound my way through the back sois until I reached Khlong San Saeb, the canal that cuts east-west through the city and provides water taxi service into the heart of the old city. There is a pedestrian path alongside the canal that I’ve ridden before, so I followed it a short way to the west before crossing over a foot bridge to the other side and entering the back of a temple.

The front side of the temple leads to Phetchaburi Road, one of the busiest traffic routes heading into the old city and one that has more bus traffic than you can believe. It is also one of the most direct routes into the city, so I followed it all the way to Sanam Luang, the large parade grounds immediately to the north of the Grand Palace.

Large crowds of black and white-clad Thais were arriving at the Grand Palace to pay their respects to Her Royal Highness Princess Galyani Vadhana, the King’s older sister, who passed away on January 2nd. We are in a period of mourning for her and later this year there will be a royal funeral and cremation on Sanam Luang. It should prove interesting as it will be the largest such event since the royal cremation of HRH the Princess Mother in March 1996.

By this point, traffic was much lighter and the riding more pleasant. I continued past Wat Po – the Temple of the Reclining Buddha – and past the flower market before ending up at Saphan Phra Puttha Yobfa (King Rama I Memorial Bridge – “A” on the map). This bridge, opened in 1932, is the oldest span across the Chao Phraya River. After crossing it I rode halfway across the adjacent Phra Pokklao Bridge to get this picture:

One thing I discovered is that there are a lot of homeless people sleeping in the cool spaces beneath the bridges and near the water. Several were also using the steps leading into the river underneath the bridge for their early morning bathing, modestly wearing swimming shorts or boxers.

The city sparkles at this early hour with a good number of locals up and around but very few tourists. The tourist boats ran up and down the river almost devoid of passengers, while the small ferries were filling quickly with locals coming and going from home to market, temple to restaurant.

Now on the western, Thonburi side of the river, I pedaled south into the bright morning sun through a predominately Chinese neighborhood that had bright red banners strung across the street in anticipation of next week’s new lunar year. My route took me down Charoen Nakhon Road, past the Peninsula and the Hilton Millennium hotels before I arrived at the Taksin Bridge (“B” on the map).

This is the bridge over which Sathorn Road runs, as does the Skytrain extension that will some day (this year, maybe?) connect to five stations on the Thonburi side of the river. It should be pointed out – to clarify the confusion that some farang experience – that the name of this bridge (Taksin) should not be confused with the name of the deposed Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra. The names are not the same in Thai (ตากสิน vs ทักษิณ) and are pronounced a bit differently with the bridge starting with a hard “d/t” consonant rather than the softer, aspirated “th” sound as in the word “tall”.

Beneath the bridge is a park with a football pitch and several takraw courts, in addition to other health and fitness facilities. There were perhaps a hundred or more Bangkokites getting their morning exercise.

Takraw is a popular Southeast Asian sport characterized as “kick volleyball”. Using only your feet, legs and head, teams propel a rattan ball over a low net on a badminton sized court, following rules that are roughly similar to volleyball. Watching the players, it looks like a sport that takes tremendous flexibility and concentration.

Also beneath the bridge there are a large number of passenger express boats and a ferry, mostly older, sitting and waiting for repair, heavy crowds, or their eventual scrapping.

I continued across the Taksin Bridge, stopping in the middle to capture this picture looking up-river, below. From left to right, you see the Peninsula Hotel, the Hilton Millennium Hotel (with the spaceship lounge on top), the CAT Telecom building (with the antennae), the lower-rise Mandarin Oriental Hotel, and the Shangri-La Hotel.

Also near the Taksin Bridge, just to the left of the picture above, is the Pepsi bottle reclamation facility. This is the point to which all of the used Pepsi bottles from throughout the greater Khrungthep area are brought. They are then loaded on barges – several a day, from what I’ve observed – and then towed up river to the Pepsi bottling plant north of the city.

Behind the Pepsi pier is the construction site for The River – what will be a 73-story condominium building, a monstrosity that will be entirely out of proportion for the waterfront.

The illustration to the right is from The River’s own press department. While the foreshortened perspective exaggerates the different heights, it still shows how grotesquely out of balance this building will be.

As the second highest tower in Khrungthep (Baiyoke Tower II is 85 stories and the nearby State Tower with its rooftop restaurant is 63 stories), it will be very hard to miss on the skyline.

Subsequent to its approval, the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority enacted new legislation, restricting any future development along this section of the river to only eight stories.

One can only hope that development remains controlled so the waterfront does not end up like Hong Kong’s. The geography of Hong Kong makes that sort of vertical development work okay, but here in the Big Mango, we would end up with a wall of buildings along the river, keeping river breezes from cooling the rest of the city and essentially making river views the domain of only those with the most money.

Looking west along the bridge, into the morning sun, I could see the last Skytrain station on the line (until that extension opens) – Taksin Station, below. Behind it looms an unfinished tower that was the sister of the State Tower (mentioned above). There are some interesting pictures taken from the State Tower during its construction, when it was known as the Royal Charoen Khrung Tower. Interesting that with so many unfinished buildings in this city – estimated at over 300 – that there is enough demand for so many other new high rise projects to be commenced.

Crossing the rest of the bridge, I walked down four flights of stairs to the street level, and resumed riding on Charoen Khrung (literally, “New Road” – the first paved road in the city). This is where the city gets especially interesting because it is really the heart and soul of the city. Outside of the royal portion of the city – Rattanakosin Island – this is the street on which the early Bangkok residents were going about their lives.

I continued all the way down Charoen Khrung until it dead-ended near soi 109, right next to the Good View Restaurant, situated at a sharp turn in the Chao Phraya River. Pedaling into their empty parking lot and right up to the water’s edge, it did indeed have a good view.

Backtracking along Charoen Khrung and just a little confused as to where I was – I had no map with me and was working only from a mental picture I had in my mind, one dotted with unfilled areas reminiscent of the “there be monsters” notations on ancient mariners’ maps. Shortly, I connected with Rama III Road, a major thoroughfare that feeds off the New Khrungthep Bridge. A large road, it was thankfully not too busy this early on a Sunday and it had very wide lanes, giving me plenty of room to ride unmolested by passing motorists.

Rama III is also the planned route for Governor Apirak’s ambitious Bus Rapid Transit program. The official website is here – it is in Thai but the pictures will give you an idea of what’s happening. Scheduled to open in about a year, there is already signs of progress. There are several BRT stations under construction – this one is located in front of a shopping center (“C” on the map) on Rama III Road.

My understanding is that the busses will have exclusive right-of-way in the center lane for most stretches of the road, giving it almost the same effectiveness of a light rail system but with significantly lower capital costs. Special buses will have to be purchased that have doors on the right-hand side instead of the left. It also looks like the platform will be very high, so presumably the doors will also be raised.

In either case, kudos to the local government for making an effort on transit issues. That, combined with the planned conversion of all 2,000+ plus local busses from diesel to compressed natural gas in the next two years, will hopefully help reduce pollution at least a bit.

Continuing along Rama III, I soon arrived at the Rama IX Bridge (“D” on the map) which carries the Rama II Expressway southwest towards Samut Sakhon and Samut Songkram provinces. If you’re a little confused by all the “Rama” names, that’s understandable. It would certainly be easier if the Rama II Expressway crossed the river on the Rama II Bridge.

Underneath the bridge on both banks of the river are parks. The one on the eastern bank is quite open and has many manicured gardens, providing a pleasant space to stroll and offering a lot of waterfront along which to take in the view. There is a nice view of the Kasikorn Bank headquarters on the west side of the river, below. Its dramatic roofline is lined with neon at night, making an outline that looks like the bank’s abstract growing plant logo. (“Kasikorn” is an old Thai word for “farmer” and the bank used to be known as Thai Farmer’s Bank.)

Looking just downriver from the park, you can see the “Mega Bridge” complex, a series of two recently opened bridges that cut across the Phra Pradaeng peninsula, significantly improving access to the south, southwest and southeast of the city. You can also see a capsized ship, below. I remember reading about this sometime last year on 2bangkok.com but was unable to locate the information. It makes for an interesting image, I think.

My ride continued along Rama III Road and back through the Khlong Toei port area. While there were probably still plenty of interesting things to see along the way, I was getting tired and traffic was picking up, so I did less sightseeing and more watching for crazy bus drivers.

The last leg of my trip brought me back into familiar territory, past the Queen Sirikit Convention Center – where Markus and I regularly ride circles in the adjacent park – and then town Sukhumvit Road to home, where I arrived just after 10:00.

It was a lengthy ride, but afterwards I feel like I have a much better understanding of many parts of the city I had not explored before. Still, there’s plenty of ground to cover!

christao408

The adventures of an expat American who moved to Bangkok for his husband.

Tag Archives: Bicycling