Kanchanaburi River Kwai Weekend
A 277 km loop
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Why this ride
Leave the city behind and spend the day on roads with texture. A 277 km loop that starts and ends near Bangkok, about 5 h 02 of riding. The plan has 1 food stop marked.
Roadbook
- Bangkok
start
Bangkok is a city you meet with all your senses at once: the smell of charcoal grills and jasmine garlands, the sound of tuk-tuks and boat engines on the river, the heat that reaches you before you step out of the hotel lobby. About five million people live in the city proper and many more in the sprawl around it, and the Chao Phraya river is the thread that still holds the old centre together. The Grand Palace, Wat Pho with its huge reclining Buddha, and the temples of the old quarter sit along its eastern bank, and ferries cross the water for a few baht.
For a rider, Bangkok is the thing to leave early. Traffic is dense, the expressways have tolls, and the junctions are a thicket of motorbikes, so you will want to start at dawn, when the streets are quiet and the air is cooler. Follow the signs for Highway 1 north, or take the expressway and then peel off toward the old capital of Ayutthaya, about eighty kilometres away. Lane discipline is looser than in Europe, and overtaking happens on both sides, but traffic moves in a kind of rhythm you can learn to read.
Weather has a strong hand. The hot season peaks in April and May, with temperatures near forty, and the rains from June to October can drop a month's worth of water in an afternoon. November to February is cooler and drier and by far the best time to ride, though air pollution can be bad in the cool season. Always carry a rain jacket and drink plenty of water.
Bangkok has everything a motorcyclist might need: fuel on every major road, bike shops, 24-hour convenience stores and food at every hour. Start with breakfast at a street stall, perhaps a bowl of rice porridge with pork and a fried egg, and coffee with condensed milk. If you plan to ride a Thai-registered bike, keep your licence, passport copy and helmet with you, as police checks are common. Return in the evening and the river looks different, with the temples lit up and ferries gliding past.
- Kanchanaburi
food
Two rivers meet at Kanchanaburi. The Khwae Noi and the Khwae Yai join on the edge of town to form the Mae Klong, and almost everything that made this place famous, and infamous, happened along their banks. Most people know it from a film title, but the bridge over the Khwae Yai is only one short piece of the Thailand–Burma Railway that the Japanese army forced through the jungle in 1942 and 1943, using Allied prisoners of war and a far larger number of conscripted Asian labourers. Tens of thousands of them died, and the line earned its other name, the Death Railway.
It is worth giving the history an hour before you think about lunch. The Kanchanaburi War Cemetery sits right in town, immaculately kept, rows of low bronze plaques under rain trees, and the railway museum beside it explains the scale of the thing better than any bridge photo. Walking across the bridge itself is allowed, carefully, between the occasional tourist train. Early morning is the time: the light is soft, the vendors have not set up yet, and the river is still.
The ride out from Bangkok is not the attraction. Route 4 and then Route 323 run west through flat, hot country of sugar cane and roadside stalls, with trucks and a fair amount of traffic until Nakhon Pathom falls behind. Keep in mind that motorcycles are not allowed on Thailand's expressways and motorways, so the ordinary highways are your world. Once you are past Kanchanaburi, though, things improve. Route 323 follows the Khwae Noi valley north-west towards Sai Yok and Hellfire Pass, with limestone hills closing in and the traffic thinning, and the side road towards Erawan National Park and its terraced turquoise falls is a lovely detour of an hour or so.
For a food stop the town makes things easy. There are floating restaurants on rafts along the river, plenty of noodle shops on the main streets and a night market where you can eat for very little. Fuel is everywhere, from big branded stations to roadside pumps. Drink more water than you think you need: from March to May the heat in this valley is serious, and the best riding hours are the first three of the day and the last one before dark, when the hills turn blue and the river picks up the sunset.
- Bangkok finish