THAILAND • TRAVEL

Info • Medical

Total km biked: 725 kilometers

Days biked: 10 days

The road conditions in the areas of Thailand where we rode (central and eastern) were really great. We rode north from Bangkok to Den Chai (south of Chang Mai) and east from Bangkok to the Cambodian border. Traffic is heavy in Bangkok and many cyclists opt to take a train out of the city. We cycled out once and took a train out once. Outside of Bangkok, even where the traffic is heavy, the roads have pretty large shoulders, so traffic was really not a big issue, other than the pollution from the exhaust. On smaller roads, the traffic is light and the riding really nice.

It was pretty warm in Thailand in February, but not unmanageable, especially when cycling in flat areas of the country you could generate a nice breeze while pedaling. When cycling uphill and moving, it felt pretty hot due to the humidity.

Food is extremely easy to find and a highlight in Thailand. For 10-40 Baht, you can eat some amazing food. Each town/city has a night market, where you can find dinner each evening and a morning market (usually in a different location). We ate a lot of green and red curries, sticky rice and mango, grilled meats, fresh fruit, pad thai, and noodle soup. You can also find 7-11's in nearly every town where you can get food, drinks, water, toiletries although we tended to try to go to smaller family run shops.

Guesthouses and hotels were easy to find in Thailand. We also camped and stayed with families. You can find a double room with a fan for 150-300 baht, depending on where you are, and for about 400 baht you can find air conditioning.

We had a general southeast Asia map we bought in Italy which was sufficient for Thailand.

The food is definitely a highlight in Thailand (and we are not really food oriented people...we don't really care what we eat). But you can really find it everywhere and it is less than a dollar for a great meal. For us, the scenery wasn't so fantastic in Thailand, but we didn't cycle in the mountains in the north or along the coast, which we are sure are much more beautiful landscapes. The Thai people were also really kind and helpful.

Internet is fairly quick in Bangkok and about a dollar an hour. Outside of Bangkok, we found the internet pretty slow, but easy to find. ATM's are everywhere - even in smaller towns.

We found transportation kind of a pain in Bangkok. It was great if you needed to go anywhere near the river - then you could just take the river boat which runs north to south through the western part of the city for about 9-13 baht a ride. However, Bangkok is so big and spread out. Both the sky train and metro aren't cheap (about a 35 baht (1US dollar) a ride) and taking too many tuk tuks and taxis can really add up. We also took the local bus, which was cheap, but if you need to be somewhere at a certain time and aren't familiar with the bus routes, you can end up late. We rode our bike a fair bit in Bangkok as well, but it is also slow due to heavy traffic a lot of the time and many one way streets. Because the embassies are quite far away from the area in Bangkok where most of the tourists stay, which often involves some form of transportation, it may be more convenient to get visas on the border or in smaller southeast Asia capitals like Vientiane or Phnom Penh.

We also heard many rumors about it not being a good idea to get your Cambodian visa on the border. We heard the border officials overcharge for the price of the visa and it is better to get it in Bangkok. We took the chance and got the visa on the border and didn't have any problems at all. We paid 20 US dollars with no hassle. We don't know if this is the case for everyone, but it was our experience.

We went to and from the airport in Bangkok twice, first arriving from the Middle East and again to fly to and from Burma. The first time we took the local bus to Khao San Road. It cost 150 baht per person and 50 baht each per bicycle for a total of 400 baht. When flying to Burma we needed to be at the airport at 4:00 am and there were no public buses running at this time, so we needed to get a taxi. We were able to find one for 250 baht total and we put the bikes right in the back seat. Since the taxi was cheaper (and more convenient - it takes you right to your guesthouse) we tried to take one from the airport back to the city when we returned from Burma. This direction it was a bit more expensive, but we did get one for 350 baht, still cheaper than the bus.

We can also recommend a small travel agency off of Khao San Road (which was recommended to us by Lisa and Erica) called Travel in Style. It is in the alley way that runs just parallel to Khao San Road. We bought our tickets to and from Burma there and they were better prices than on the internet, which is rare.

Also if you flying with your bike somewhere in southeast Asia, we can really recommend Air Asia. Although they are buggers about the weight - even 1 extra kilogram matters, you can take your bike for US$13 one way (to most places in SEA), as long as it is less than 15 kg. We sewed two large Chinese plastic bags together and put our bikes in those (Air Asia states that bikes must be boxed/bagged in some fashion). This way we didn't need to worry about finding a box (especially in Burma where we thought it would be difficult) and the bags weighed almost nothing compared to a bike box (our bikes are almost exactly 15 kg each). We had no padding around the bikes, just in the bags, but Air Asia treated them really well. We actually think it may be a better way in general to transport the bikes, rather than in a box. Because the bags had two handles at the top, they were easy for the baggage handlers to move and carry and we put the bikes in the bags upside down, with the handlebars, rack and seat at the bottom, so the bikes rested on these. We also bungeed the front wheel on the derailer side of the rear wheel for some added protection. You can get the big Chinese bags in Bangkok for 75 baht each (not on Khao San Road or anywhere nearby - they charge more than double this price) and we found a seamstress on the street to sew them together for us. You can also find these bags in any small city in Thailand for a fair price and have get them sewn together there as well.