Bangkok Cycling Adventures

In Bangkok, sometimes just the thought of battling through relentless heat and traffic from one place to another is enough to sap the spirit of adventure. And it’s not just regular visitors and residents who find that our conception of this massive metropolis has become formed by a few frequented pinpricks on a map, and that the Bangkok we discuss as an entire entity actually amounts to a few sois around our offices, homes and hotels. First-timers can fall just as easily into a notion of what the city is and is not, based on a mixture of hearsay, legend, social media advice and the must-see lists of innumerable websites.

For these and many other reasons, the typical reaction to the idea of cycling around this city for a day ranges from confusion to horror to outright astonishment. Surely only the most fervently ideological Mamil would roll his carbon-fibre chassis out into Taowarat or Sukhumvit, running red lights and admonishing SUVs as he goes.

It takes approximately five minutes on a Smiling Albino bicycle tour of old Bangkok to rinse these ideas out of your head.

Cycling for the curious

Most visitors have at some point experienced that sense of vague wonderment at the warrens of life that unfurl themselves down every soi, sub-soi and sub-sub-soi in this city. This cycling outing takes that vague wonderment and turns it into eight hours of fascination.

Not far from the lobby of the Shangri-La where this particular trip assembled, the bicycles are already threading through sois where you can barely hear a car. The sheer speed at which you can move from the grinding roar of traffic to the shady peace of a narrow lane can leave you feeling that it’s been a while since you took a proper breath.

We are in old Bangkok, the city that exists between the fat lines of the expressways and main roads that give it much of its soiled reputation as a place only fit for cars. There are decorated walls left over from street art exibitions, the immaculately restored residence of a 19th century French liquor trader (and his substantially less immaculate warehouse), Catholic churches from the years after the Burmese sacking of Ayutthaya, royal temples with murals so exquisitely painted that you wonder how not a single other visitor is there.

Hidden hamlets are our speciality

We pass an old Chinese trader’s mansion, whose heavy wooden doors open out to something wholly unexpected, stop at a Chinese coffee shop that doesn’t appear to have changed structurally since it first opened in the 1920s, where men with tombstone teeth smoke and stare. We pedal through mazes of tiled streets, that if nothing else expose by contrast the utter ugliness of asphalt, then into blackened dystopian alleyways piled high with discarded engines and car parts.

A semi-frantic dash through the traffic-choked grounds of a hospital leads us minutes later into the arcane, oil-soaked world of the Thonburi Locomotive Depot, where the heavily greased wheels of an old steam engine await their next nostalgic outing. Nobody pays much attention as we clamber between the tracks like schoolkids. A few hundred metres later, we are watching members of a family forging bronze bowls in the same way they have done for two centuries. 

Bangkok is more than meets the eye

By the end of the day cycling through Chinatown and across the river through the historical lanes of Thonburi, there have been so many fascinating discoveries that it feels like I’ve been in a completely different city to the one I imagined I knew. Backed into the corner of a Skytrain carriage, hoping nobody would get close enough to recoil at my rancid sweatiness, a relationship with this city had been rekindled.

It turned out I hadn’t become jaded by Bangkok, I’d just stopped bothering to explore it.

The post Bangkok Cycling Adventures first appeared on Smiling Albino.

It’s prudent to start by saying that while Bangkok is by no means “safe” to ride a bike in, neither is any city. But in fact, most Thais are patient drivers, adept at keeping a steady hand in traffic that swarms with motorbikes, tuk-tuks, and various other forms of transport. Horns are rarely used, and drivers are generally considerate of others. Several friends of Smiling Albino have said they’d rather ride a bike in Bangkok than many other cities.

Recent developments have given bike riding a boost, bringing it from a sometime-hobby to a legit lifestyle goal. Firstly, you have a concerted effort by the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority to expand the bike lane network in the city, complete with pylons to separate the paths from regular traffic. Granted, Bangkok is certainly not Amsterdam or Copenhagen, but it’s a start. Indeed, plans for a 184 kilometer lane stretching across five provinces are well underway, giving Bangkok’s biking community something big to look forward to.

There was also the recent Bike for Mom and Bike for Dad events, overseen by Thailand’s Crown Prince, which saw tens of thousands of riders across the country join in a coordinated ride to honor the birthdays of the Queen and King, as well as serve a symbolic act of unity and to promote a healthy lifestyle. It even made it into the Guinness Book of World Records eclipsing the previous record.

Bangkokians have seen a marked increase in the last couple of years of cyclists flying down canal paths and bike lanes during the week’s commute while decked-out road-bike gangs head to the airport cycling track and provincial roads on the weekends.

“Okay,” you may say, “Bangkok is seeing more and more riders. I can bike, but why should I?”

Most importantly, many people assume that ‘biking in Bangkok’ means squeezing your way between cars, buses, and tuk-tuks on major thoroughfares, but that’s not the case. Experienced riders spend most of their time on the small roads and hidden alleys that snake back into the unseen areas of the city. This is where you discover the “real Bangkok” that guide books simply can’t take you.

Also, the increase in riders means that an entirely new ecosystem has sprung up to welcome them. You can now find bike-themed cafes and restaurants around the city that offer parking and even discounts for bikers. Websites and guides have materialised showing routes all over the city, and how they link up. Bike shops large and small sell everything from kickstands to space-age carbon fiber racing frames. And Facebook groups and social media chat rooms share information, sell used gear, and make suggestions on the where, how, and when of biking. It’s a new dawn!

We understand that biking in a strange place – especially one as strange as Bangkok – can be daunting, but trust us when we say you’ll find no better way to explore the many hidden corners and winding streets of Bangkok. Tour buses? Pffft… give us a bike any day.
Contact Smiling Albino to enquire about our unique cycling tours of unseen Bangkok today!

The post Bangkok Biking Boom first appeared on Smiling Albino.

In 2007, an international team of researchers including Dr. Damian Evans established through their Greater Angkor Project that Angkor had been the largest pre-industrial city in the world providing for around 0.1% of the entire world’s population. To support this, Angkor created a complex water management system to store and disperse water throughout the extreme dry and wet seasons.

One of our discoveries is ‘The Secret Lake’, a natural reservoir that formed when the Angkorians built the East Baray. It’s a beautiful body of water at the base of Phnom Bok a small hill, providing sanctuary for many breeds of birds, small mammals and fish.

For those who want to get away from the crowds and out into nature, while still discovering hidden temples and learning about the ancient water management systems, there are a variety of activities to engage in around this area such as hiking, cycling and kayaking, as much or as little as you like. A major benefit of this area is the Secret Lake is only about a 20 minute drive from Siem Reap, making for a perfect half-day excursion.

Of course, it may not stay secret for long, particularly after this splendid blog, but at the moment, our guests have this lake to themselves besides a fisherman or two, flocks of birds and the odd herd of buffalo grazing along the banks. It’s a refreshing reprieve from the growing crowds of visitors at Angkor’s main sites.

Imagine a short bike ride or hike along the walls of the East Baray, through a pagoda and small villages where you can meet families and get an understanding of how they live. Smell and hear the forest and small cultivated plots of land along the way with the breeze in your face. Here, you will also discover remnants of the Angkorian hydrology infrastructure that allowed the empire to flourish for 500 years. At the end of the bike ride or hike, kayaks will be waiting for you at the edge of the lake. Paddle across to Prasat Tor, a 10th century temple hidden in a patch of dense forest where your picnic and a bottle of wine will be waiting. We can even have Dr. Evans or other prominent Angkor archaeologists join you to give you an in-depth appreciation of what you’re experiencing.

To thoroughly enjoy the beauty, nature and hydraulic designs of Angkor beyond the main sites, this is a fantastic half-day trip demonstrating experiential travel at its best. Enquire about our Angkor experiences here.

The post The Secret Lake of Angkor first appeared on Smiling Albino.

Near Siem Reap it’s flat excepting the isolated Phnom (hill) Bok that serves as a compass to weary cyclists (and incidentally gave Jayavarman V an excuse to build a temple on top).

Small sandy paths and red earth roads have been usurped by the new Korean ring road that speeds oblivious tourists to Banteay Srei or Citadel of The Woman to the North.

Heads down and legs pumping we ate the tarmac on our escape from the clutches of tourist town in search of temples.

It was cheating slightly as a few weeks back we’d recce’d the ruins on dirt bikes with Dave the helicopter pilot who’d plotted them from the air.

Our mission today was to find a path between the ruins and the West Baray, where many of our mountain bike rides finish.

Google Earth had made it look easy but I made it hard, leading Lors and Zsuzsa along a track that finished in a ploughed rice field. ‘Boss listen to me, I know the way,’ Lors implored. I didn’t so we followed him and found the first landmark we were looking for, a dam across the Siem Reap river.

Not really a dam more a muddy earth wall broken by a concrete sluice and a couple of poles that served as a bridge.

A perfect pastoral scene was set in front of us. Farmers tilling their land with buffalo or their mechanical equivalent, kroyun – a sort of hand held tractor. Ladies up to their chest in the small lake formed by the dam gathered lotus flowers until gazing at 3 barangs crossing a rickety bridge became too enticing, especially when one of them, me – fell in.

‘It’s just here Boss.’ Unfortunately Lors was right. I was going to have to pass on my Chief Exploration Officer title. An isolated patch of forest lay in front of us. Zsuzsa and I twisted our way through the tangle of vines and thorny branches into a gloomy clearing surrounding the ancient ruins of Prasat Sra Laos. A conical brick tower on top of a sandstone lintel and doorway. I looked inside to see if there were any bats.

Back at the bikes Lors had made friends with a a couple of happy rice farmers who’d given up on ploughing the paddy fields in favour of rice wine.
We zigzag’d our way across the countryside on paths between rice fields, through bush and small patches of forest. Picking up sandy tracks all in vaguely the right direction. ‘How do you know the way Lors? This is amazing!’ I exclaimed. ‘I lucky, just find the right route,’ he glibly smiled*.

Tall tree’s are valuable, there’s not many left outside the protection of the Angkor Park. Tall trees near ruins though are inhabited by spirits that are best appeased and not pissed off but cutting their home down. Google can show you where the temple should be but it’s the trees that give away where it is. Prasat Cha was no exception. Unlike Prasat Sra Laos the shade kept the undergrowth at bay and created an enchanting glade around the artificial mounds on which Prasat Cha was built.

The towers are made of brick and laterite, the doorposts of sandstone richly ornamented with Sanskrit inscription, which dates back to the 10th century and Jayavarman V. A lot of what we know today about the Angkorian Empire has been learnt from just such carvings, which while mainly describing the temple and who built it give snippets of fascinating information. Or so I’m told – I don’t read Sanskrit, which is just as well as there’s a local story that tells of a five-headed dragon that appears when you’ve finished reading.

*Lors had checked out the route the day before!

The rest of our way followed well worn paths we knew well, until we reached a new channel cutting us off from the West Baray. We hoisted our bikes and filed across the big muddy ditch to the walls of the Angkorian Reservoir.

Eight by two kilometres with no geographical help from a valley or a hill, the West Baray was until the 20th century the largest entirely man-made reservoir in the world built a thousand years ago at the beginning of the 11th Century.

Unfortunately this time The Amansara F&B were not there or Mr Kong to meet us with cold towels and iced lemonade, cold beer and lunch boxes. Instead we made do with lukewarm Kulen water

Our team is delighted to take guests exploring the local countryside by mountain bike or hiking, discovering hidden temples where cold beers and lunch boxes will be waiting. Enquire here!

The post Temple Hunting on Two Wheels in Angkor first appeared on Smiling Albino.

We have city tours that appeal to history and architecture buffs, rural tours for nature lovers, or a combination of the two, with distances and routes tailored to all levels of cyclists. What is constant is our attention to detail, creating unique experiences and balancing adventure with comfort.

We’ve been cycling around Asia and leading tours ourselves since 1999 and can honestly say that exploring new places by bicycle can be the best way. The smells, the sounds, the people, the culture, and the freedom to stop at any time to record or just savour the experience, all make for a memorable adventure. And there’s no better way to explore one of Bangkok’s famous floating markets, a real one visited by locals and not bursting with tourists.

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Smiling Albino supplies our own well-maintained Specialized mountain bikes fitted with Schwalbe road tires which we’ve found most suitable and comfortable for the routes. Everything is inclusive; hotel pickup and drop off, van and boat shuttles, all the water you can drink, snacks and the best meal stops on the routes. Support vehicles are on hand when necessary.

The routes we’ve planned stay away from large roads with traffic and follow small neighbourhood streets, bike lanes and canal paths. You’d be surprised what a fun and pleasant experience cycling just outside of the city can be. With the breeze in your face, it’s much cooler than walking, and the welcoming “Hello!”s from the locals, accompanied by wide smiles, always leaves you feeling uplifted at the end of the day.

Smiling Albino also hosts amazing cycling tours through the jungle ruins of Angkor in Cambodia, the Mekong Delta in Vietnam and the hill tribe areas of Northern Thailand.

Enquire about our tailored cycling tours today, we can fit the perfect diversion into your travel itinerary.

The post Smiling Albino’s Deluxe Cycling Tours first appeared on Smiling Albino.