Riding in Thailand

There are all sorts of reasons to ride to Thailand.  The excellent north south highway makes traversing the Malay Peninsula a matter of a day’s ride.  Hardcore hard arsed riders have made it a point of getting to Hat yai in a day, although personally I have always found riding past Penang or Ipoh around the time of a late lunch very difficult to do without stopping for a little something. I know you could easily do the eating rounds on the way back from Thailand, but somehow its not quite a holiday until the penang kuay teow from Red Garden, the Mee Goreng from Brooke Street or the ipoh guo teow from tianzhen coffee shop is set before me.  So this time finds me spending a night in Georgetown before heading out across into Thailand at the Weng Kerlian crossing. 

For the biker this is hallowed ground; many feel you’re not really an overland traveler that justifies all that wonderful kit on the bike until you crossover from Malaysia.  Then there is the change in riding conditions. The north - south highway is a smooth as silk ribbon of perfect engineering that goes on for miles and miles. The main danger isn’t the road conditions, it’s trying to stay engaged.  Look carefully that the crashes that one invariably sees on this highway – especially those in the hours of darkness -  and what you notice is the absence of tyre marks before the wreck at the side of the road – a sure sign that someone’s fallen asleep.

Once in Thailand all that changes.  There is a highway system that allows an easy 400 km a day but its nothing like what you leave in Malaysia.   For the biker I suppose what sums up the situation more clearly than any other is this road sign:

You see in Thailand bikes are meant to be limited with bicycles on the road shoulder, not mixing it up with the rest of the traffic,and certainly not overtaking anybody.  In many ways this is consistent with the local situation.  There are hardly any local bikes larger than 100ccs on these rural roads.  Most hardly travel above bicycle speeds.  Making allowances for a five hundred pound one liter bike is unthinkable.

What this means is that the spider-sense needs to be modified.  Under usual riding conditions outside Thailand the most dangerous time on a trunk road is when overtaking against oncoming traffic.  In Thailand it’s when you have this nice straight piece of road all to yourself in your direction and some traffic coming the opposite way is stuck behind a slower vehicle.  What has happened on numerous occasions is that they all start overtaking and seem to disregard your right of way.  What has been explained to me is that they know you’re a bike and you should be on the shoulder.  Similar situation when you have a faster moving vehicle coming up behind you: they will go through you rather than overtake because you’re supposed to be on the shoulder. 

There seems to be some solutions to this. One is to make your bike obviously not the kapcai they think you are.  A friend of mine on a gorgeous Kawasaki voyager has no such problems because he actually has three lights forward headlights.  Some others have added on interesting bits of lighting although it should be said that some kapcais have this as well. The other solution is to obey the law and actually stick to that shoulder. This will be a bit of a trick, because what can be found on that shoulder includes livestock, monks, bikes heading the other way.

The third alternative I think is the most sensible.  Slow down, forget you have horsepower far in excess of requirements, behave as though you are a local kapcai and take in the scenery.  It’s  not so much an issue of making the required miles as seeing as much of the place as you can. And a lot of the scenery is simply fabulous and more than makes up for the change in riding habits.  Riding outside of Trang the limestone formations come right up to the edge of the road.

On a whim I actually followed one of the road signs that suggested an off road turn would lead to a nice waterfall.  Completely off the planned route and not indicated on the GPS or the Michelin maps. Pretty soon I’m enjoying a genuine blast of some gravel trails and catchup with some locals and their off road vehicles.  At the back of my mind was the Schedule.  There were miles to make and only so much daytime left, but I figured this was a wandering trip and I might never pass this way again.  I’m really glad I did. In the middle of nowhere was proof that if you behave like a local you might just see what the locals keep to themselves.