As predicted earlier, things have become a bit easier after leaving the tourist trap of Bangkok and getting on our bikes. Cycling through Thailand thus far has gone suprisingly well. The roads are well paved with huge shoulders on the side, there are a plethora of food and drink stands every five kilometers (can you say 10 baht thai ice tea?), and the locals we have seen along the route have been incredibly supportive, honking horns, giving thumbs up, and practicing their English phrases of encouragement. One elderly man also riding a bike yelled at us "I love bicycle trip!" with a veracity that seemed to indicate he had been waiting his entire life to yell these four words.
After a hectic day riding through Bangkok we were a bit concerned with the traffic patterns, not to mention remembering to ride on the left side of the road (fairly easy until you get to some crazy traffic circle and have no idea where to go). Once we hit the open road, however, our concerns with traffic subsided quickly. It seems that roads and drivers in Asia are quite used to having all sorts of vehicles and such on their roadways; at any given time there will be pedestrians, cyclists, motos, buses, trucks, rickshaws, elephants, scooters, cars, taxis, and lories all sharing the same space. Slower traffic simply keeps to the left, and if you have to pass someone you make sure the lane is clear enough and then you go for it, usually giving a warning honk, ring, or yell to make sure everyone knows that you're coming through. Everyone on the road has given us more than ample room when passing, with some large lories even slowing to a near-stop rather than barreling by full-speed. This scenario is quite a contrast to the idea of riding on a busy highway in the U.S., where the roads are designed for fast moving cars and that's the only thing that belong on the highways, gosh darnit.
While the going has been relatively easy thus far, it has not been without excitement. We have been trying to stick to the smaller roads, and while our map is decent it doesn't exactly have every turn, bend, or road number that would be nice to have. Combine that with long stretches when the road signs are only in Thai, and it's easy to see how we can get lost every now and then. At one point we were following a small country road that our map had crossing the river on what we assumed to be a bridge. We rolled into a small riverside town and certainly didn't see the bridge we were expecting, much less any apparent way across the river. After some broken Thai and English map studying sessions with a Tuk-Tuk driver we queued up on the street with the other cars and motos and waited for the ferry to come across the river while a fried-coconut-banana saleswoman tempted us with her wares (we bought some and she through some in for free!). We somehow got a special bicycle rate on the ferry across the river and were rewarded with a near-deserted stretch of beautiful road on the other side.
We've been resting our legs (and butts!) for a few days now 400km+ from Bangkok in Sukhothai, an ancient Thai capital, and enjoying the amazing food and ruins. We ran into another couple on bikes crazy enough to be doing something similar to what we're doing, expect that they are loaded down to the max and headed into China. We're still planning on staying light and fast for the time being and will head out North in the morning as we move closer to the Thailand/Laos border and a river trip down the Mekong. Yeee-haw!
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