In what was my longest ride yet here in Thailand, I joined the Thailand MTB group for what was billed as a 70-km round trip to Ko Kred (Kred Island), a car-free ethnic Mon enclave in the middle of the Chao Phraya River north of Krungthep.

Poom, an American-educated Thai who I met on some Thailand Cycling Club and Critical Mass rides, extended the invitation and I forwarded it on to Stuart.  I’ve never ridden with Thailand MTB (“mountain bike”) before but am always up for a new adventure.

The adventure required me to be up Sunday morning at 5:00 so that I had time to shower, stretch, eat a bite and check my tire pressure before meeting Stuart on Thong Lo about 6:30.  From there we met up with Poom at Wireless Road and then the three of us continued to the Sathorn District office, which is tucked away down a small soi in the Sathorn/Silom business district.  This first leg added about 10 km to our journey and we hadn’t even official started the ride yet.

Thailand MTB is mostly the younger, rougher, more testosterone-driven types (they are mountain bikers, after all) compared with the more varied group that you find with the Thailand Cycling Club.  That’s okay, though: I wanted to ride harder and faster than the usual liesurely pace of the TCC events.

Push hard we did.  It was a hot and humid morning and we didn’t make our first stop along the route until we were up at the point where the north-bound route makes a hard left turn to the west.  This was some 20 km from our starting part on Sathorn.

By about 10:00 we arrived at the ferry to Ko Kred.  After taking the wrong ferry we finally ended up at the island.  As mentioned before, Ko Kred is in the middle of the Chao Praya River.  It was just a peninsula at a bend in the river but in the early 1700s it was decided by the Siamese government to build a canal through the peninsula to create a more direct shipping route to the old capital of Ayuthaya.  Over time, the canal was widened and now it is the main river channel.

The island is still populated with ethnic Mon.  A popular day-trip for Thais, Ko Kred is automobile free, mostly marshland with elevated concrete paths connecting different parts of the island.  Along the way there is no shortage of vendors seling nick-knacks, food, and the earthenware pottery for which the island is famous.

We ate lunch at one of the two temples, both of which have large markets, then did a 5-km circuit of the island, dodging the mostly Thai tourists.  On the far side of the island we stopped at the second temple.  Stuart and Poom bought some fried food, the exact ingredients of which are unclear.  I think they were vegetables with one maybe being a flower blossom?

Above, the mysterious fried foods.

I decided that oil didn’t meet my needs so instead opted for homemade coconut ice cream with sticky rice and peanuts.  At the ice cream stand, an older lady was passing with her two young grandsons.  They stared at my in my bicycle helmet and sunglasses and commented about the farang.   I responded by saying hello and asking them if they knew how to speak English.

Shy, they declined to answer.  Their grandmother smiled and prodded them: “Sure you can.  You learned how to say ‘Hello’ right?”  They nodded at her but were still too shy to practice their vocabulary word with me.

While at the market, I noticed several stray dogs wandering near a riverside pavillion, earing scraps of food.  One looked quite large and, upon closer observation, I realized it was a wild boar, left.

Nobody seemed too concerned that a boar was wandering around the market so I didn’t worry about it either.

We regrouped at the ferry pier and started our ride back.  By this time it was 1:00 and we were under the open sky, hot sun evaporating our sweat nearly as quickly as it appeared on the skin.  Poom was riding a collapsable bike, one of those types with small wheels that can easily be brought onto a train or bus.  The problem is, smaller wheels means you have to pedal more.

On the way back, this extra effort was beginning to show.  He fell a bit behind and so Stuart and I slowed up so as not to abandon him.  At the next stop, we told the rest of the group, who was eager to ride like the wind, to go ahead without us.  We knew our way back.

An hour later we were at the Mo Chit Skytrain station, near the Chatuchak Weekend Market.  Poom decided to call it quits and ride the train back to his car.  That sounded fine to me, as we had already put in 68 of our planned 70 km. 

Stuart’s ambition stepped up, though, and he said he was going to push forward and do the last 20 or so kilometers home, taking another route down Lad Prao Road, connecting to Ram Intra / Ekkamai.  The return route isn’t on the map above, but Stuart mapped out the whole course at this link.

Never one to look like a quitter in front of others, I joined him.  Ninety minutes and a lot of traffic later, I pulled into my condo’s car park with 92 km on the odometer, exhausted but satisfied with my accomplishment.