Day 5 - Bangkok - Surin

Dear all,

 

I woke up just a bit past 6AM and ready to roll, but Marta was still sleeping, and also we would not leave before meeting Chana in the morning.

So we ended up having a slow morning, sharing some breakfast and packing our things to have our bikes ready for the trip.

We had basically 2 plans:

1. Visit some other monuments and a high terrace in the city center to have an overview of Bangkok;
2. Cycle to and within Bang Kachao, wich is called th lung of Bangkok

We ended up choosing the option 2, as we have been told that was quite nice to cycle in the peninsula and we could see the floating market. Moreover, I am not sure about Marta's opinion, but I was getting a bit sick of Bangkok's air pollution!

 

Chana invited us to share some of her food, which we kindly thank for! It was very nice staying with her and maybe the path of our lives make us meet again? Thank you for your hospitality Chana and all the luck with you projects, both architecture ones and the personal ones! We do hope that your bagpack will be a huge success!!

Marta, Chana, Peter & the couch

 

After saying bye bye to Chana, we took the BTS with our bikes and, if the way to reach the BTS was smooth with the elevator, coming down to the streets at our destination had to be done by taking our bikes on the staircases, as the staff was not there and the people we met did not speak any English.

Marta @ BTS

 

As soon as we reached the road, i noticed that my speedometer was not indicating the speed. I have experienced some peoblems lately and it seemed to be a malfunction on the connection between the case and the device itself, usually easily being solved with some fine adjustment on the position. I have been trying to fix it for a while, but regardless of my effort, I could not succed! I thought that the only possibility was that the magnet that is on the wheel would be far from the sensor, so I should check the position of the two of them.

I was surprised to find out that the magnet was not on the wheel! Never had any problem like this before, after 3600 km on this bike and luckly I brought the Garmin device from the road bike (as it would record pur track, to be seen afterwards and to share the route in here). Anyway, I am having problems to connect the garmin GPS tp the tablet via Bluetooth! Technology sometimes is just a pain in the... Cof cof, I should not write the word ass in this blog, right?

Navigating within Bangkok with the tourist map they give you for free at the airport it is not easy, as most of the roads does not appear there and communication with people is not easy at all. Moreover their letters are very different from ours, so it makes map reading very tough.

We could reach the pier we were looking for, thanks to Chana that wrote it down in Thai language, so we could show it to a Police officer. When we got to the place, I was afraid that we could not take the bikes with us for the other side, as they had that stated that in more than one place, but when I asked for tickets they asked us for 40 Bath for both of us. Then we understood that it is not for the regular boat but for a taxi one! The trip takes few minutes.

Our tickets

Our first stop was In Sri Nakhon Khuean Khan Park, which is very large park. We just cycled a bit through it, as we would like to see some other places in this peninsula, and getting back to Bangkok could take a while, as navigation is not easy and the traffic is, like Marta says, Wild! :)

Marta & Peter at the long name park

The roads have quite limited traffic! It was dammed good to ride the bikes without cars around and most of all, with the feeling of fresh, unpolluted air!

Peter & Marta cycling

One of the things you see the most is power cables. They have from time to time transformers and from there the electricity is distributed apparently in one to one basis. Sometimes you can see more than 100 cables in a very messy arrangement! Look at the picture, I think it speaks for itself!

Power cables, thailand!

We found then a petrol station. They look way different from what we are used to, but they are automatic, which means that to pay the fuel you must to have cash with you!

Fuel station

Next to the station there was a coffe with a funny name: Mom & Me.

Mom & Me cafe

We found the floating market, but unfortunatly was already closed. They probably just run it in the mornings!

The floating market

Near the place we parked there were a bunch of people and a van parked nearby. Well, I think that the only result people would be the one shown on the next picture:

You know what guys, I am on of those type of guys that grew up playing around with friends in the parks and so. What I mean is that I do not belong to the lets call it Playstation generation, not being sure if it is just a generation or only people's choices. I remember when I was playing in the parks with sand and one day they just removed it because it is not hygenic enough! Some calls it progress, some calls it being too much fussy with our children today. The truth is that none of my friends came to hospital poisoned with the sand from the park... Anyway, maybe I also agree that the surfaces that they have in the parks are just better than the sand ones? The truth is that I miss it! Confusing, right? Well, all of this nostalgia I guess is because of the playground we found! Easy, peasy, Japanesy!

Playground!

It was supposed to have a normal road from this point till the pier we needed to go, but I guessed we missed it. Instead, we came on a quite narrow path, made of concrete and connecting several entrances for people's houses. We just randomly turned left and right and we could not believe how lucky we were to reach the normal road just about 300 meters from the pier! It was a great place to cycle!

There we took left

We kept going straight

Peter Lamb followed by Marta

When we got to the pier we realized that we could not take the normal boat, so we needed to take again the water taxi for 40 Bath, 1€!

We stopped for some delicious street food and luckly it was very easy to find the Avenue Rama IV that would took us straight to the train station!

Peter Lamb & Marta @ Bangkok's train station

Ticket counter's at Bangkok's train station

Waiting hall

Departures hall

We got there one hour before we had to. The reason we needed to be there 2 hours before departure was the need of buying tickets for the bikes at the train station, as they only sell them on the day of departure. The cost of transport for the two bikes was 180 Bath.

After buying the tickets we needed to wait untill our train would be on its platform. We would be departing from platform 9, the train towards Ubon Ratchathani.

Our platform for the night's train

The bikes must go on the cargo wagon which is at the front of the train. Roughly one hour from the scheduled departure time, we took our bikes to the cargo wagon and there was an officer that looked at our tickets and let us put the bikes on the train. When we were about to lock the bikes, he said no lock! We tried to explain him in every single way that we want to lock our bikes, that bikes are important for us, that they are our mean of transport, we even explain them that they are expensive and we need to sleep without any bad feelings... Well, nothing worked out, no locks! The reason, he said it is they only stop one minute in Surin (where we would disembark), so there would not be enough time! I tried to explain him that I take around 30 seconds to my wagon till that front one, but itwas impossible to convince him!

Then appeared another guy, that would tie up th bikes and disembark them in Surin. We would need to pay him 20 Bath for that! I explained that I already payed 180 Bath for the bike transport, so I do not need to pay anything more. They said that was the cost of service of disembarking the bikes! I thought about saying that I would disembark them myself and actually would lock them down, but that would come to the point where we were before, and for 20 Bath discussion, it was just better (and perhaps wiser) to give up!

Our bikes at the cargo wagon

As for us, we took the second class sleeper, which means that it is a wagon where you have 2 seats in front of each other, those 2 seats transforms into a bed and there is another bed on top. That is on one side of the wagon. On the other side is exactly the same. I did not count how many seats there are in each wagon, but I would say that is over 40 in each wagon. About 2 months before our departure we sent an e-mail to the railway company (as they suspended the online sales), to book an 1st class sleeper on which every 2 seats makes 2 beds in a separate compartment, but we never got a reply from them. I think that the price for the tickets would be around double, but we decided to save that money for something else.

On the second class sleeper, when the train starts its way, ther is an officer that unfolds the down seatds, put a foldable mattress that is stored at the upper bed, puts pillow covers, new sheets and provides blankets. I forgot to mention that the upper bed has no window. Once you are ready to sleep, you just unfold your curtain and voila!

2nd class sleeper wagon

 

That's all for now folks!

 

Best,

Peter & Marta

 

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