Bangkok Part 6: Bangkok bikes

By Joe Berk

So what’s today’s blog all about?   I promised I would tell you a bit about the different kinds of motorcycles and motor scooters in Bangkok, and this is that story.

Bikes dominate Bangkok’s urban landscape.  I know that sounds like a catchy thing to say (snappy writing, perhaps), but it wasn’t intended to be literary lavishness.  It’s just the way it is.  Two-wheeled transportation is everywhere.  In traffic, the bikes filter by on the left and on the right.  In front of any business or in any parking area, there are hundreds of bikes.  And at every stop light, dozens of bikes filter to the head of the line.  The excitement builds as the countdown stop light nears green (they tell you how many seconds until the light changes over here), and in the last few seconds before the red goes away, a zillion motorcycle engines start revving.  The word “glorious” seems appropriate.

There are few big bikes in Bangkok.  Oh, you’ll see one now and then, but they are a rarity.  Over here anything over 200cc or 250cc is just wasted displacement.   I’ve been to Bangkok several times and of the tens of thousands of motorcycles I’ve seen (and those are not exaggerated figures), there were exactly two big bikes.  One was a Harley Sportster and the other was a Triumph Bonneville.  There’s just no need for more displacement.

One moto thing that’s noticeable right away are the orange vests.   When you see a rider with an orange vest, that means they are using their bike as a taxi.  They give short rides (the folks here tell me typically under 2 kilometers).  The riders have to wear the government-sanctioned orange vests and a helmet; passengers don’t wear any safety gear.   A lot of the female passengers wear skirts and ride side-saddle (I’ll show more of that in the next blog).  I’d say roughly 10 percent of all the bikes are being used as taxis.  Most of the drivers are men, but you do see women riders occasionally.

Surprisingly, it’s rare to see more than two people on a bike.   You do see it, but not like I have seen in China or Colombia (I once grabbed a photo in Colombia of a motorcycle carrying six people).

Bikes are working vehicles over here.   I mentioned the taxi thing; it’s also very common to see bikes weighed down with all kinds of freight.

There are scooters (you know, the things that are styled like Vespas), step-through motorcycles (like the old Honda Cub), small sport bikes (small displacement CBR or Ninja type bikes), plain old motorcycles, and (surprisingly) a lot of Grom-styled bikes.

When I was last in Bangkok 6 or 7 years ago, I saw a few Kawasaki motorcycles that looked a little like the Honda Grom.   Today, the Grom style is very popular in Thailand, with motorcycles of this style from several manufacturers.

I’ll close this blog with a three photos of a bike I spotted yesterday that I thought was pretty cool.  It’s a CG-clone-based motorcycle, and its owner has a sense of humor.

We are enjoying our last full day in Bangkok.   We’re up early tomorrow for the flight back to California.  It’s been grand.  We’re staying in the top floor of a 5-star hotel in downtown Bangkok (the Pullman Grand Sukhumvit) and we’re living in the lap of luxury.  The room is awesome, there’s a pool and a gym, there’s a free tuk tuk ride wherever we want to go, there’s free booze and breakfasts and dinners, and it’s costing less than what a Holiday Inn might cost in the United States.   We’re going for a dinner cruise up the Chao Phraya River tonight with our good friends Kevin and Nan, and we’re going to hit another one of the temples later today.   We took a grand long boat ride on the Chao Phraya yesterday and it was awesome.

There’s one more in this series of Bangkok blogs, and it will feature a set of photos showing Thai women passengers on moto taxis.  Stay tuned.  I think you’ll like it.

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