The Cyclist and the Bangkok Cycling Challange

here's one of the funner stories from my travels as a touring Cyclist...enjoy!

">BKK Bilge Challenge


Let's just call today the Bangkok Addition of Survivor, Bangkok Cycling Challenge 2005.

Annie and friends, from the Cycling Hash (www.hashhouseharriersbangkok.com) decided it was time to school me on bike riding in BKK (Hereafter an acceptable abbreviation for Bangkok) and today was my first lesson. Basically you need to be insane which works really well for me, because I say a day without death defying adrenaline rush is a day not lived in Thailand!! After surviving being nearly crushed by taxis, busses, tuk-tuk, semi’s and lung collapsing pollution to the elevated walk/bike way 2 miles from my house we are off to a good start. Then it’s a series of on the bike, off the bike, heave it over my shoulder and huff up 3 flights of stairs every 30 feet for a mile. Urban cycle-cross.

Then it's the Bilge Challenge where we ride a cement catwalk over an open raw sewage pond for 2 miles, and if I don't puke or fall in I am golden, because no one will save me. Then through someone's overgrown back yard, under a fence, cross a freeway, opposite way down a one way street and finally make our dazed and confused way to the boat dock that will take us out of Bkk proper.


The colorful long boat pulls up and we angle our bikes in-between two wooden seats, enjoying the breezy 15-minute boat ride across the Chao Phraya River. I love it, 4 gringos (or “Farange” in Thai) clutching their thousand dollar mountain bikes on a Long boat in Thailand. Awesome!

We regain our cycling legs after the boat trip, then it's through the beautiful green countryside where we got "rad" on an over grown single track complete with snakes, lizards and feral dogs. The variety of green is such a cacophony that I stop, and open my eyes as wide as I can to take it all in.

The hardest part of the trip was the next 15 miles on the worst stretch of highway I've ever ridden. More trucks, taxis, semi's and tuk-tuks riding up our asses. There were sand traps, flooded road traps, and a tuk-tuk driver that slowed down to our 10 mile an hour pace, totally blocking traffic so he could practice his English. Meanwhile a symphony of semi horns was blaring. There were kids pouring juice on our heads as we passed the local bus. Thousands of motorbikes with whole families of 6 clinging off the back, feral children, ubiquitous 3rd world half dying dogs laying in the hiway as if they were safe as houses, push carts carrying everything from fruit to toilet plungers. The final straw, our cheerful but somewhat casual "guides" Annie and George who didn't really know the way but had a pretty good idea.

I was exhausted, when we finally end up on a Military base near the sea, miles from our intended destination. I soon forgot my fatigue because they had a lively restaurant for Thai families on a Sunday outing and I could smell fresh pad thai stir-frying in the woks.

We slid into our seats sweaty, road grimmey, ready to devour our beautiful Thai lunch. The place was filled with families and young military men. Then the oddest thing begins to happen. Every 10 minutes or so, a Samba beat would play over the speakers and a transvestite, or Lady Boy (“ka toy”) in a gaudy Thai version of Carnival costume would parade out, do a few hip twirls, then wave at a friend and trot over to them while the families carried on as if nothing unusual in the least was happening. We all looked around to see if we were hallucinating. It was utterly surreal especially at 1:00 in the afternoon on a MILITARY BASE!!

I love the strangeness of Thailand and the absolute tolerance of paradox.

We then made our way back to the boat via chicken bus, where they pack hundred’s of people on hanging off the sides and us and our bikes. It was hilarious!

I survived fixing a flat in the grime soaked, and cockroach infested street of the local market, transvestites, 50 miles of pollution, sunstroke, dehydration, jungle and finally putting my bike on the subway home (I did the last 8 miles thru the streets of BKK by myself without GPS locator) My reward was pulling up to the straw shanty shack of a beer stand near my house, impressing the Thai homies by skidding to a halt, and slugging a cold one.

There is nothing I have found yet more refreshing than a cheep Singha beer after a death defying, sweaty day in Thailand.

If you are up for it, I challenge any cyclist to the BKK Bilge Challenge next summer.

I’ll buy the beer.