It’s funny that the same day I published my story of a remote island paradise just five minutes from Mazatlan, I found another remote island getaway just five minutes from Bangkok. I’d attempted to get to this island twice before: Once to visit the floating market and a second time in an attempt to ride my bike there.

On my second try, I rented a bike from my hostel and began riding south. Unlike cycling in Mexico City, cycling in Bangkok requires a much higher state of alert as you must share the same space with cars and errant motorbikes. Perhaps it was being on high alert to avoid getting run over that led me in a complete circle on my attempt to reach the island.

I have an outstanding sense of direction so it was particularly disorienting when I ended up a block from my hostel after riding in what I thought was a straight direction for about an hour. Both the treacherous nature of the cycling and navigational failure discouraged me from trying it again.

The first time I visited Bangkok, I could swear I saw a beautiful bike path running parallel to the airport light rail line. It is what inspired me to try what ended up being my initial failure to ride here. Determined to find where people cycle in Bangkok, I did a search for the best places to bike in Bangkok.

While several of the listings were city parks, one suggestion captured my attention. It described riding a rural island on narrow car free roads and a floating market in the middle of the whole business. It was hard to imagine a rural escape like that just a few minutes from a city of 10 million people.

While all the sites talked about how nice a place it was to cycle, none of them mentioned how to get there or where to rent a bike. I did a Google search for bike rentals on the island and found two located next to a ferry dock. I figured my odds were doubled with two options, and I decided to head for the ferry landing.

From downtown Bangkok, you take the Blue Line to the Khlong Toei station. From there you can catch a mototaxi (if you’re alone) or a taxi if you’re a group. Simply tell the driver that you are looking to go to the Wat Khlong Toei Nok Pier.

Since last year, Google has been good enough to list the names of the places in Thai for drivers who can’t read English (understandably, that’s most of them). It turns out that a lot of Thai people can’t read Thai either, having grown up only speaking the language, so it’s important that you learn the Thai pronunciation of the places you want to visit as well.

I decided to take a mototaxi from the metro station to the pier. The trip from the metro to the ferry dock is about 10 minutes by motorbike. You could walk it in 30, but it’s all industrial and you’d have to cross some big roads without crosswalks so I recommend spending the $2 to maximize your time on the island instead.

The mototaxi dropped me at the beginning of a narrow alley leading towards the water. Heading towards the river seemed like the most logical choice, and as I cleared the last of the stalls selling exotic food and goods, I arrived at a ticket booth. The woman typed the amount on a calculator for me to see, and I handed her 20 Baht (about 50 cents).

As I did, she ran around the booth and beckoned me to follow her down to the dock. While I had entertained all kinds of ideas about this ferry, and whether it would even exist, I had never envisioned a canoe with a motor. The narrow width of the craft meant gently stepping into the middle so I didn’t capsize the vessel, sending the other 7 passengers into the Chao Phraya river.

The trip across took about five minutes, and at the top of the ramp, you literally have to walk through a bike rental shop to get to the island. This was extremely convenient, and after listening to the woman describe the three types of bikes offered, I chose the least expensive. Not because of its price but because it was the most upright of the bikes. I thought a ride around a rural island suggested something that resembled a beach cruiser with a big bouncy seat and wide sweeping handlebars. Your posture on such a vehicle just transmits relaxation.

I took a picture of the island map mounted on the wall of the rental center for later reference, but before I even got to the road leading away from the pier, I was seduced by a narrow bridge to my right. Immediately I crossed over a narrow inlet winding through the trees from the main river. It was the meandering street that boats used to get to the main highway, the Chao Phraya. I love water based travel.

Crossing the bridge I entered a collection of houses that were connected by the narrow path I was riding. It was so narrow, I had to stop my bike and lean over to let the kids on their bike pass by in the opposite direction. I didn’t wander long before I realized I’d trapped myself in a cul de sac and headed back over the bridge that had called me here to begin with.

Two minutes down the road, and again I was summoned away from the road by the irresistible site of a giant Trojan horse. As I got closer, I realized it was part of a playground for children, as also evidenced by the collection of petting zoo animals roaming the property, including an curious ostrich who found it unusual to be looking at a human eye to eye.

Wanting to get to the floating market sometime around lunch, I departed the petting zoo and began to make my way across the island. One of the highlights noted on the web site I’d found suggested riding through a regional park that was also a great place to take pictures. It was also a wonderful place to see birds, though I was a little too late in the morning to catch many. That didn’t deter my fellow birders who shared the path with me, cameras dangling to each side as their telephoto lenses bounced against their hips.

The park had a variety of trail types, and all seemed open to bicycles. While I was pleased at the lack of signage prohibiting bikes from the trails, I would have welcomed any signs indicating where I was headed. The map I’d originally taken a picture of really only showed the main paths on the island, and there were many opportunities to get lost on the map in areas that were simply represented by splotches of green.

I embraced the adventure and found myself on a causeway through fields of rice and palm trees. The causeways were only a couple feet across and sometimes only had railing on one side. This necessitated stopping on occasion to again lean my bike over while a motor scooter passed by.

At some point my spontaneity was ended when I arrived at a large Buddhist temple. There was a road leading out, and after consulting an actual map on my phone, I realized I was pretty close to the floating market, but I’d have to navigate the rest of the way instead of taking my chances heading down what looked to be a promising causeway.

Truth be told, I did try one only to end up at a dead end among several houses on stilts so I decided to take the beaten path for a change. I arrived at the floating market only to discover that despite being surrounded by water, there was nothing floating.

I have been to a few floating markets so I know they exist, even if at this point they are created just for tourists. Historically, when Bangkok was a labyrinth of swamps, which everyone traversed by boat, floating markets were a real thing. Vendors collected to sell food and produce, not unlike the trading posts where Indians in the United States would collect to trade goods.

There are a handful of floating markets around Bangkok. Most often, they are boats preparing food at the edge of a pier. You walk up and order what you want, and then take a seat on the pier while they prepare your meal. Some also sell things like produce and flowers, but most seem dedicated to food production.

The floating market at Bang Nam Phueng contained all of these products, but instead of being sold from boats, they were sold from stalls lining long aisles that ran through a swamp. This particular market had a few things I hadn’t seen before, like sweet rice noodle rolls stuffed with corn, coconut, and shredded carrot. They were dyed beautiful colors using the petals of flowers.

I ordered those and a crab omelet, which came as a thin sliced round wheel which made it look like a pizza. It was delicious, but I’ve found it’s hard to go wrong when you fry anything in copious amounts of oil. I took my meal and sat in an open space beneath some trees. It was in the middle of the market so it provided an excellent place to watch others elatedly browsing the variety of foods presented.

I found a coffee shop on my way out of the market. These places are excellent for an afternoon pause. You can get an iced coffee or Thai ice tea to help combat the lethargy that inevitably creeps over you after a day in the hot and humid climate.

Rejuvenated after cooling my core temperature, I headed out to complete my loop of the island. The island really was a paradise for cycling with those single lane concrete paths meandering through swamps and fields punctuated by coffee shops and parks. By now I’d learned to differentiate between roads and causeways on my map and rode towards the narrowest of the lines.