Cycling the backstreets

We spent three hours this morning cycling through tiny alleyways, over canals, and through jungle-shrouded minor roads. And all this was in central Bangkok.

Cycling was a great way to see how people really live outside of the Bangkok high-rises. The corrugated iron and wood shanties with people living in their open doors and front steps hide little. There is certainly poverty, but for all that the most surprising thing was the bright and cheery greeting we were given by the locals. It was like riding through rural Vietnam a few years ago – kids waving to us, old people smiling, people shouting hello. And all this in Bangkok.

We stopped at a couple of temples. It is still the Water Festival so there was much pouring of water over Buddhas. One interesting thing we learnt was that the lovely Chinese carvings you see outside many temples were brought back from China as ballast a couple of hundred years ago. – in much the same way Sydney’s tiles and wrought iron came from Britain.

It was a really enjoyable morning, but oh my god it was hot. It’s just furnace hot – every surface is burning. Bare feet entering temples were a study in stoicism. The bike frame was burning. Shirts were shimmering with heat. By the time we were don’t we were more than ready to seek out some air conditioning.

In the afternoon we caught a ferry downriver to Wat Arun. The river is huge and crowded with ferries, pleasure boats, long-tail boats, huge bulk carriers. The ferry drivers seem to treat the docking pontoons as dodgem cars – no light touch here, just a resounding thump as ferry meets dock.

Wat Arun, or the Temple of Morning, is very pretty. The place was filled with locals having their photos taken in traditional dress. It was a bit of a toss-up whether that added local colour, or was just to instagram-fake for comfort. The fact many were also carrying huge water blasters was slightly incongruous.

So how did we end the day? Cocktails by the pool is proving very cooling.