A Welcome from Touratech Thailand

Location: Bangkok Miles: 0

Bangkok looks grey from the plane.  Heavy skies and low cloud.  It’s rainy season. Stepping out of the airport, the air is thick, muggy and within minutes beads of sweat are popping out from Kevin’s forehead.  Phew!  It’s not exactly the best weather to ride a bike, but other commitments have only left this slot in the calendar, so away we go.  The taxi races towards the Silom Road – it is only quick because it’s a Sunday.  We have heard Bangkok traffic is worse than London, which seems hard to believe but it turns out to be true.
Surrounding the hotel are narrow streets packed with street vendors, smells of fried foods waft in the air and dogs wander in and out hoping for a quick bite.  To the drone of blessed aircon, we catch up on sleepless airplane rest. 

On Monday, we head over to Touratech Thailand to meet its owner, Peera.  He turns out to be fantastic help and passes on a wealth of knowledge to us, as well as treating us to lunch, then introducing us to the two BMW dealers in town, BKK and Barcelona.  Our agents are processing paperwork for the bikes and we have an appointment for 9am the next day to sign off documents and fingers crossed get the bikes.  That night, we are taken to Silom Village for a welcome Thais dinner and meet local BMW bikers, friends of Peera. 

We are at the Customs Building next morning, present our documents and wait.  It’s only a couple of hours for us to sign off our temporary bike permits and then we wander across to the warehouse to collect the bikes.  Obtaining there release is another two hours clock watching as agents run around, pass money and get us to sign more papers.  The warehouse is chaotic, with boxes, forklifts and people zig-zagging haphazardly, and all without a fluorescent bib in sight – it’s a miracle!

Our bikes, still beautifully crated by James Cargo appear from the depths of the warehouse and are taken outside the warehouse, where they are left outside an office for us to un-crate in the muggy afternoon. No one seems to care about the timber we stack up against a wall.  The bikes roll off the wooden pallet and fire up first time.  We have just enough fuel to get to the nearest station.  It’s taken the best part of a day.

Peera calls to invite us for something to eat at a local restaurant lakeside.  Don’t try to get into Bangkok between 4 and 7pm he says.  It’s impossible.  Motorcycles are not allowed on the Expressway and so have to fight their way through the packed underbelly of Bangkok traffic.  If we were on tiny scooters, skinny bikes, that would be fun, but on the large bikes, with narrow lanes, we might as well be a car.

Around 7pm, Eak a local rider, accompanies us back to the hotel.  The traffic is still horrific, it’s now pitch black too and it’s like being in a video game. The cars are fairly polite, give you space and tooting is rare.  This is NOT like riding in China – there is a courteousness about it that belies the Thai culture.  The scooters are like annoying mosquitoes – they’re everywhere, quickly, all over you, then gone.  Changing lanes runs the risk of swatting them. 

Huge lightening strikes are now flooding light across the skyscrapers and with only 1km to go to the hotel, the full leash of torrential rain splashes everywhere.  Eak tris to pull us over to the far lane, which has some cover from the Skytrain overhead, but it’s of little use. Everything is misted, the pavements are a mass of stalls rain bouncing off temporary plastic sheeting, and there’s an odd mix of the Duke of Wellington pub and Deli France alongside chicken satay vendors and tacky waving gold buddhas.  By the time we get to the hotel, we are sodden and dripping, but still warm!

The next few days sees us take in some of the tourist sites, look out hotels, get our bearings.  Having talked about routes with the local riders here, we also decide to get our Lao visa in Bangkok.  That way we have full flexibility about which border to cross into Lao.  Without it, we have to cross at the Friendship Bridge.  As the best riding is in the North of Thailand, we decide its better to stay exploring around the Golden Triangle area and use a small northern border for Lao.  It takes us longer in taxi rides to and from the Lao Embassy, then it does for them to issue a visa.

We’re ready to get on the road now.  We’ve eaten too well thanks to all our invites from BMW riders here and the food has been delicious – fried curry crab, shrimp patties, steamed fish, beef thai green curry, spicy prawn soup and so the list goes on.  There’s a bit too much of a holiday atmosphere appearing!  So it’s a cool 7am set off, about 280 miles and another World Heritage Site to culturally soak in.  Falling in love with Thailand will be all too easy.

Big thank you to Peera, Mr Pe O, Vallope, Kai, Eak, Pukki and the rest.  It’s been so much fun, you’ve looked after us like royalty and we can’t wait to ride some with you and be back next May.


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