Bangkok: Bike Tour

Since I was only going to be in Bangkok for 2 or 3 days, I decided to do a tour to get the most out of it in a short period of time. …had heard good things about the bike tour so away I went.

Along w/ me was a diverse group from Switzerland, Holland (very common in SE Asia) and Canada. The first major destination was a busy outdoor produce market. It was a bit of a challenge to get the bikes through w/ all the people and food stands. You can buy anything there from dragon fruit to live chickens which they’ll slaughter for you right there on the spot! As an American, I’m not used to seeing so many dead animal carcasses being sold on the street in such a way, but that’s just how they roll in Bangkok I guess! lol

From there, we rolled through a poor area/shanty town. Our guide explained to us that many were immigrants who were working in Bangkok and saving money to send home. Other’s had come upon tough times and found themselves there. All in all, it wasn’t that bad. They had the basic necessities and I’ve definitely seen worse. Still, it was a good reminder of what others have to endure.

After that we made our way to the river, where we loaded all the bikes onto a longtail boat sporting what looked to be a bit V6 automobile engine block jury rigged to work on a boat. The propeller simply extended on a pipe from the crankshaft (check pics).

The boat took us up and across the river and essentially out of the city and into the jungle! We rode our bikes past coconut and banana farms on elevated pathways that kept us out of the water. …pretty wild! We saw a tree snake, a monitor lizard and some gigantic Karp-like fish swimming in the wild among other things.

Anyway, was a lot of fun, check pics below!: