Riding in Thailand

So, I am going to meet up with a friend in Thailand, and think it would be pretty cool to rent a bike and do some riding while we're there. I found this website: www.gt-rider.com, and they have some good looking rides. Anyone used stuff off of this website? What do you think the safety gear would be like to rent from a place like this? Any input would help.

Thanks,
Mel

 

I rented an older HD in Padia(sp?) beach to cruse around on for the weekend. Had a great time, but the only sport bikes for rent were 250's. Goofing around Padia was fun but I wouldn't ride around any big cities like Bangkok. One of the British mags did a story on the most dangerous places to ride and Bangkok was number one. Where are you thinking of riding? Either way, take pictures and let us know how the trip was.

Action

 

Dude that looks like a kick ass time try and get on one of those African twins or better yet see if you can find an NSR or was that NSP 150-250 heard they are all over the place there.

 

Yeah, so we are thinking of riding mostly in Northern Thailand, doing a couple day loop from Chiang Mai. Seem pretty kick ass, mostly little bikes, but I don't think that there is any need to go faster.

 

I'm doing 3 weeks there in April next year with my gf. Renting a BMW 1200GS and doing a 3000 mile round trip of Thailand and Burma, should be interesting

 

It's not cheap i tell you that much. 4 or 5 star hotels, group ride with a support vehicle and obviously planned stops. All fuel, tolls and ferry costs are included. Its one of those "trips of a lifetime" deals through the BMW club. Expensive but worth it. Only extra is the flights.

 

This is what Pattaya, Thailand looks like. This is actually a slow day, normally, the traffic would be bumper-bumper at 15MPH. Mini-bikes & scooters are tremendously popular since they get great MPG & are easy to maneuver/park. To described driving in Thailand, picture a demolition derby with a 1/4 of the crashes.

The debuachery in Thailand is only limited by the contents of your bank account. All 3 photos were taken in front of or around the corner from a 5 Star, walled, gated, guarded resort. Before anyone makes any off color comments about my activites there, save it. I have far too much respect for my wife & myself to engage in such activities. If that's what you're interested in, I do not judge you for it, it's just no my thing. Both times I was there, I spent the entire time hanging out at a Thai Boxing bar. I was also there during one of the largest bird flu scares of 2004 so we couldn't eat anywhere other than the hotel (Marriot Reef Resort) or fast food like McD's.uke:

KC-10 FE out...
lane:

 

Excited!

Those picture of Pattaya look pretty awesome. I wish I was going to have more time than 8 days. It looks like I'll go north to Chiang Mai to ride for a couple of days, and then back to Bangkok. I think I am going to bring my helmet and some rudimentary tools at the very least because I don't know what will be available at the rental shops. My trip is definitely going to be more budget than one organized through a BMW club. I'll probably end up renting some crappy 150-250 cc bike, I figured I am not trying to get anywhere than fast anyhow. How does one go about finding the Thai boxing places? Is it only during a specific time of year?

 

They aren't hard to find. All you need to do is ask at the hotel or walk around & you'll run into one eventually. The one I frequented allowed betting on everything from the fights to which cockroach could run across the floor fastest. I made about $250 just on the fights. The best fight I saw was a 9 year old VS a 10 year old. The 9YO knocked out the 10YO in the 2nd. I gave him $10 & I was told later that I gave him 1/2 month's rent.

KC-10 FE out...
lane:

 

So, reading through some of the websites for motorcycle rental, they all say that you will have to surrender your passport for insurance purposes. What do you think of that? Seems risky.

And I do plan on taking all of the necessary precautions for pick-pocketing and such. I've done some traveling in places where that's an issue, and have had girlfriends get pick-pocketed. That sucks because somehow it ends up being your fault. I did chase a few of those mo-fo's down to get her money back. I remember one instance in Cuzco, Peru when my girl got her wallet stolen out of her back pocket. It resulted in me running about a mile to catch the dude, I got her wallet back, but didn't get the chance to beat the dude down like I wanted to. Oh well, better to have the money back than anything else.

Thanks for the advice,
Mel

 

Back from Thailand

I got back from my trip to Thailand this week, and it was pretty awesome renting motorcycles over there. We went up to Chiang Mai in Northern Thailnd to ride. As some of you mentioned, you can't get bigger bikes over there, we rented some CB400's, and they were some of the largest (cc) bikes we saw. It happened to be Chiang Mai Bike week, though, and there were some pretty cool choppers around, and some other bikes people had imported (or brought with them from abroad). We actually had a lot of fun on those CB400's. They are so light compared to my VFR, and you can really corner on them. The roads were really nice outside of the cities: well paved, deserted, and beautifully winding. Of course, it's absolutely nuts riding in the city, and you always have to do a little of that. There is every form of transportation on the rode in the towns, and that includes machine powered, human powered, and animal powered - and nobody is following traffic signs. If you guys ever get a chance to go and do this, I would HIGHLY reccomend it. The best part was that it is super cheap to do. We rented the bikes for around 15 dollars a day, and you could have easily rented smaller motorcycles for less. I included some pictures, as you can see, it quite an attractive place. The first one is on the road between Phrao and Chiang Dao. It was a really fun ride, you can see how windy it is in the photo. The second photo is of my riding buddy when we stopped for lunch in Phrao. After that is a picture of us at an elephant park outside of Mae Rim. As opposed to other elephant parks I had been to, the elephants were treated very well at this one. And the last photo is on the highway back to Chiang Mai from the north: just classic southeast asia.

Mel

 

You can rent bigger that's for sure, i'm renting a BMW 1200 GS so it's def possible. Nice piccies btw, looks like you had a great time :tongue:

 

We looked all over Chiang Mai, we did find some 1100 cc Honda Shadows, but they were in pretty bad shape. Where are you finding those BMW's? We were thinking it would be really fun to have a dual sport to do some off roading.

 

The CB400's were about 15 dollars a day, but is possible you could bargain a bit better than we could. I thought we would be able to get them cheaper, but the rental place wasn't having it. And, yes, we did have to leave out passports. Seemed a bit sketchy at first, but I think that it is the norm in Thailand. We tried to leave our credit cards, but they wanted our passports. Needless to say, we got them back and everything was fine. You do have to watch, though, we ran into someone who had to turn their passports in for a room at a guest house, and they ended up getting stolen. It sounded like a real pain in the ass getting new ones. Are you planning on going over there? You should!

Mel