My Intrepid Adventure Cycling Girls :)

We started our day at 7.30am, comsumed our cornflakes and then started the 15min walk to 'grasshopper adventure tours' shop near Khao San Rd.

We were warmly greeted by Tek our personal guide for our 35km cycling tour. Tek has lived in the Bay of Islands with his wife for 7 years. She is a guide also, she does golf tours, they guide all around the world, Laos, Cambodia to mention just a few.

Its hard to believe that there is scenery close to the heart of bustling Bangkok, but Tek had mapped out a trail that really did give a great cross-section of the city.

After our 'bike fitting', and briefing we started to negotiate the tiny alleyways/dense housing- it was like cycling through living rooms at times. There were many surprised locals, we were as interesting to them as they are to us! :)

The day ride ranked no.1 on tripadvisor.com as recommended by Paula Wilks from Garin College was my best day spent in Bangkok yet!

We winded our way through the suburbs to countryside leaving the skyscrapers behind, the tall buildings became small wooden houses, the roads became narrow concrete paths/dirt tracks. The crowds were replaced by lush vegetation and trees. The locals were getting around on small paddle boats to take their produce to the markets. It was a bit of a time warp. Being taken back in history.

We stopped for complimentary drinks, and had lunch at a local eatery. I had to discretely remove a large ant from my meal so that I didn't put the girls off eating their meals. Mmm bit of a difficult meal to consume. At the eatery there was a playground and the girls had soo much fun, they hadn't been on a playground since N.Z

At our lunch break we fed fish which were in mass in front of a temple. They were jumping out of the water to grab the bread we had. There were so many there as it is considered bad luck to catch fish in front of a temple.

We continued to meander our way through jungle along narrow concrete paths, they were along canals and farmland. We glided through temple sites and saw large old trees.

After our ice cream stop in the afternoon about 3.30pmish- we still had about 11/2, hours to go  we could hear the rumble of thunder, the sky started to darken and within minutes the skies opened up! Tek directed us to a place we could stop for shelter but 'we' the crazy kiwis wanted to keep going! Tek got a lot of hassles from local people about us cycling in the rain! Of course it wasn't his fault, we considered it all part of the adventure!

Tek made the comment "your girls are strong, most girls stop, start, stop,start, not your girls! And when it rains they think it is fun!!"

Henry and I were very proud of them, it really was a big ask a 35km ride in the heat. It was flat and there were lots of breaks but all credit to the little troopers!

We arrived back at the start at about 4.30-5ish looking like drowned rats, but happy ones who had experienced the multi-faceted Bangkok.

Loving the adventure-Sue