Day one cycling through Thailand

#thailand #travel #cycling

I’m writing this after an extremely long first day, not really what any of us were expecting. We arrived at our hotel tonight at about 7.30pm (a good twelve hour day), tired, hungry and in desperate need of a shower. We have since showered, eaten and sunk a few beers. So I hope this makes sense.

After spending two days chilling out in Bangkok on our own, we met up with our group and had an evening briefing and dinner. Unfortunately due to jet lag, very few of us got a decent nights sleep, or any sleep at all in my case. So our 6am alarm call felt way too early. After a quick breakfast, we were all loaded into two mini buses and driven for an hour or so out of Bangkok, to a quieter area. The traffic in Thailand is something else…..

what we have learnt so far…

There appears to be no real road safety. If there are too many cars to fit into a three lane highway, make five lanes out of it instead. Whichever way you wanna go, just indicate and go for it, they won’t mind. You can overtake, undertake or go straight through the middle, your call. Scooters are everywhere, I’ve never seen so many. You are even allowed to ride them the wrong way against on coming traffic, that’s OK. As is riding a bicycle the wrong way. If a road is shut or has a diversion sign, don’t worry, nobody cares, everyone just uses it anyway. Even if there is a workforce in the middle of it. At night, it’s even worse. You can or cannot use lights, its your choice, nobody seems to care, even if you are travelling in the opposite direction to the oncoming traffic. The important thing is, everybody seems very courteous and there are no gesticulations or even annoyed beeping. It’s all bizarrely civilised…..kind of.

After our mini bus ride out of town, we were met on arrival, by a line of brand new Trek hardtail mountain bikes, all with our own names on. We were all pleasantly surprised, as I don’t think any of us were expecting anything quite so good to be honest. The only thing that needed any real consideration was the brake levers, they were on the opposite side to the UK. Not too much of an issue as we knew we were going to be on fairly flat roads. We set off with a little trepidation about the local traffic but once again, it was all rather civilised. Unlike the UK, we were given a wide birth and within no time at all, I felt quite safe.

We cycled for a couple of hours and racked up approx 50km, taking in the scenery as we went. So many temples by the roadside and some amazing shrines. It was a bit bizarre and not quite what I expected, many new, modern apartment blocks and private estates, alongside shanty town (think Heath Robinson) style dwellings, which I had expected. The variation was both odd and interesting. Temperatures reached 37degrees at one point, with high humidity and we were all grateful for the rest stops the team had put on for us. We were greeted on three occasions along the way with refreshments, fresh fruit, nuts, biscuits and cold drinks. My favourite were the mini bananas, who knew they even exisited!

My trusty steed for the next fourteen days, check out my side stand!

First rest stop of the daySo many of these temples along the route (steep roofs to stop snow settling 😉 :bloke)The blokes steed, complete with pink bell

Rest stop two

We finished our days riding around 2pm, in time for lunch at a local roadside restaurant. The food was nice but when we were all lead to the toilets to change into long trousers (a requirement to visit the temples in), most of us wished we hadn’t seen the food preparation area or the piles of washing up on the floor 🤢. Nevertheless, we chose to ignore it and hope we didn’t suffer for it later.

The temples were amazing. We visited one reclining Buddha and another much larger temple with many different features. I had no idea the Burmese had destroyed so many of these wonderful places during the war. They cut off the heads of most of the Buddha to check for hidden gold. Our guide also pointed out that the representation of just the head of a Buddha is seen as a mark of disrespect to the Thai people, it should always have the head and body.

Wat Maha That….A royal temple that houses many Buddha relics on the city island of Ayutthaya.

We were then taken on to visit a woman who crafted many types of knives. She gave us a demonstration on how she makes an Eto knife, a knife used in the kitchen by many people over the age of forty. Not entirely sure with what the guide was implying here 😉.

We then had a good two hour drive to our hotel from here. Many pray to God, some pray to Buddha, to be honest most of us were just praying to the God of traffic on tonight’s journey to the hotel in the dark. Fortunately he or she was listening on this occasion and we all made it there alive.