Pedal powered in Bangkok

My half-day cycle tour of Bangkok begins unremarkably. I meet my local guide, Tob, and we head off from the clubhouse on our bicycles along some wide backstreets of the Sathorn district. It feels good to be cycling but I don't see anything I haven't already seen by taxi, ferry, skytrain and on foot.

Arriving at a multi-lane road shadowed by a huge cement overpass, we dismount to cross it. The traffic is painfully loud and the humidity is getting to me. I start to wonder why I'm doing this.

Nearly nine million people live in Bangkok; 14 million if you include the wider metropolitan sprawl. The city's roads authority has established 30 signed cycling routes, totalling 230 kilometres. They just haven't been successful - some shared with (blocked by) pedestrians, other routes where bicycles must compete for space with more than four million cars, motorcycles, mopeds, tuk tuks, buses and trucks.Cycle-friendly? Bangkok is the anti-Amsterdam.

Back on our bikes, I hear Tob shout instructions to "turn right", and - whffff! - I can't breathe or see. My eyes sting and my throat is momentarily paralysed. For a few seconds I cough and blink. I hear Tob coughing too.

"Thai cooking," he calls - we've just ridden through a cloud of freshly seared spices. My senses clear. I notice the traffic sounds are gone and we're zipping down a laneway narrower than my arm span.

Lush green potted plants line both sides of the lane, obscuring gated entrances into private properties. Isolated stalls sell herbs and fruit. Footbridges covered with flowering plants span waterways to dimly lit eateries. I'm bombarded with hefty smells - fragrant and fecund - as we roll through this residential maze. In this shady lane I don't notice the heat any more. I also don't see tourists; just local people going about their business.

We emerge from the labyrinth outside Kalawar Church and admire its cream-coloured Gothic spire. Tob explains how this 19th-century church had to be sandbagged during the disastrous monsoon floods of 2011. It begins to rain. Soon it's torrential. We take shelter in a nearby school and the security guards insist on parking our bicycles. Soggy children flap around us. When the rain subsides, the security guards relinquish our bikes.

We negotiate Chinatown; pass Wat Chakrawat where the monks keep live crocodiles; squeeze through a food and flower market; cross the river to the historic Thonburi district and back. When we return to the clubhouse, Thai food has been prepared for us.

I fly out that night certain that, as long as you stay well away from the designated routes, cycling is by far the best way to experience Bangkok.

TRIP NOTES 

GETTING THERE Thai Airways flies direct from Sydney to Bangkok, Thailand. Phone 1300 651 960 or see thaiairways.com.au.

STAYING THERE Anantara Bangkok Sathorn is near Follow Me; 36 Narathiwat-Ratchanakarin Road, Bangkok. See anantara.com. Rooms start from THB2957 ($98).

CYCLING THERE Follow Me Bangkok cycle tours are half day. Sathorn Soi 9 126 (33/6), Bangkok. See followmebiketour.com.

MORE INFORMATION bangkoktourist.com; tourismthailand.org.

Elspeth Callender travelled with assistance from Anantara Hotels Resorts & Spas in conjunction with Tourism Authority of Thailand.