BANGKOK (dpa) – Thailand’s capital Bangkok is known to tourists for its diverse and hectic nightlife, its temples, shopping, bustling traffic and polluted air. Not exactly the place for a bicycle tour, right?
Think again. While the beautiful green fields lined with tulips of the Netherlands won’t exactly pass you by, the experience of a cycle tour in Bangkok is a unique one.
Dutchman Co van Kessel has been doing cycle tours in Bangkok for the past 12 years and the Amazing Bangkok Cyclist, as he calls himself, will take you on a tour to parts of the city that even very few of its long-term expatriates have seen.
Starting at Soi 26 (Soi means “lane”) off the main Sukhumvit road – after a thorough briefing, where Co encourages his charges to enjoy what they see rather than talk about last week’s golf game – the tour begins by meandering down narrow alley ways with expensive high-rise apartments on either side.
Gradually one gets literally into the backyards of peoples’ homes, passing simple Chinese temples with young children waving, shouting “Hello” and holding out a hand to slap those of the cyclists as in a “high five”.
Enter the Klongtoey market where literally no tourists are found. Chickens with the legs attached, catfish still alive and flapping in a huge plastic container amid numerous stalls selling an assortment of vegetables and indigenous fruits. Porters pushing their loads, much of which will end up at the many pavement foodstalls found through out Bangkok, have to be dodged.
The first big test of dealing with the heavy traffic comes when crossing Rama IV, one of Bangkok’s main traffic arteries. Surprisingly, it goes very smoothly.
And soon the tour is heading towards the Chao Phraya river at Wat Klong Toey, but not before passing under the expressway where squatters have built up their shacks. And the children still shout “hello” cheerfully.
At Wat Klongtoey the tour boards a longboat with the bicycles and travels down the broad expanse of the Chao Phraya with the port on one side and the greenery of Bangkrachao on the other.
It is on the southern end of Bangkrachao – or the “Lung of Bangkok”, as expatriates refer to the peninsula, which juts out into the river – that the longboat docks.
The change in air and scenery from Klongtoey is immediate and astounding. It catches one by surprise. No tall buildings. No cars and different air – cleaner. Only tropical farmland where the building are not allowed to exceed the height of the palm trees. And greenery galore, very dense greenery.
While there are roads in Bangkrachao, they are few and the main mode of getting around for the tour and locals alike is by walking, cycling or motorcycling on elevated concrete pathways that criss- cross the “lung” like arteries between between groves of palm trees.
It is upon these elevated concrete pathways, usually not wider than a dining room table, that most of the second stage of the tour progresses.
Co claims he knows almost all of these pathways – all by memory. And he says it has been three years since somebody cycled off the concrete pathways into the base of one of the groves which are filled with water. The 90 degree angled turns do catch the cyclist by surprise, even though one has been warned about them.
But it is here and not in the traffic that most of the mishaps take place – and they are far and few between. People stop to take pictures and then accidently step off the concrete pathways.
“Once an American fell off. When he came up out of the water holding his camera, his first words were ‘I’m insured’,” Co recalls, laughing.”
Eventually the tour comes out on the north side of Bangkrachao where another longboat awaits the group to cross the river at sunset to Wat Klongtoey before cycling back to Soi 26.
With regular water and toilet stops and the air flowing past, one does not overheat, even in Bangkok’s warm temperatures.
And no one tour is the same. “It’s never the same. Sometimes people stop a lot and sometimes a little. I have to change the route as I cycle,” says Co.
To enjoy an experience not commonly associated with Bangkok, you can book your cycle tour with the Amazing Bangkok Cyclist, Co van Kessel at abc-2000.yahoo.com.
