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Bike Ride through Nong Chok (Nong Jawk)

Posted by Stuart at 08:24 PM on March 30, 2008

As I have said many times, it's always good to get out of Bangkok to the peace and beauty of the countryside. But as I found out this morning, you don't even have to leave the city limits to find solitude, you just have to go out to the corners.

This morning Chris and I took off on another long bike ride. This time we didn't go with a group, but our friend Markus joined us. We loaded our three bikes on the back of Chris' car and headed out past the airport and Minburi to the northwest corner of Bangkok, to an area called Nong Chok. (At least that is how Google Maps transliterates the name. I think it's closer to Nong Jawk.)

We started at a temple on Klong Saen Sap, the same canal that parallels Petchaburi Road near my house and has the boat service that I've talked about before. I had no idea that this man-made canal continued this far out into the countryside.

Our path was more or less a figure-eight as we followed Klong Sip-Sam (Canal 13) north and then Klong Sip-Song (Canal 12) on the way back. We actually did leave Bangkok for a little bit at the very north of our trip, and rested at a funky temple in Lam Lukka. The temple grounds include an Army helicopter on display, as well as an exhibit of Hell, complete with animatronics of all of the horrible things that go on there, in the basement of the temple. After visiting Hell, you can climb seven flights of very steep stairs to ascend to heaven, in the roof of the temple.

(On the map, the red star is where I live, the yellow star is where we started, and the blue star is the funky temple out in the rice fields. Click the picture to get a bigger version.)

Needless to say, the Hell exhibit inspired us to make lots of bad Hell jokes. A friend called me as I was going into Hell, and when I tried to call him, I realized that Hell doesn't have cell phone reception. When I exited the exhibit, I called my friend back and told him sorry that I missed his call, but I was in Hell.

All in all, it was a great ride, although by the end I was definitely hot and tired and a bit dehydrated. A stop at 7-11 for two bottles of Gatorade and an ice cream solved that problem. The total ride, according to my bike odometer, was exactly 3 hours of riding on 55 kilometers (34 miles).

So after another fantastic long bike ride (to Hell and back), I am very happy with my recent purchase and looking forward to our next trip.