First time riding in Bangkok.

Honda Grom 125. Small bike. Light. Easy to move. Not fast, but fast enough. Perfect for getting around. Pretty much a road legal pitbike.

I’ve ridden motorcycles most of my life, so being on two wheels wasn’t the issue. Riding in Bangkok was something else entirely.

You couldn’t drift. You couldn’t hesitate. You had to move with the traffic. Know roughly where you were going. Watch what was happening ahead of you. If a gap opened and it made sense, you went. If you waited, it closed and you were stuck.

I actually enjoyed it. Zipping along with the flow, moving between cars. It’s dangerous, obviously. A lot of riding between vehicles, and you needed the stones for it at times. You had to stay switched on.

What surprised me was how little horn use there was. I expected constant noise, people losing patience. It wasn’t like that. Cars expected bikes. Bikes did their thing. Everyone seemed to know what was going on.

Traffic lights were mad.

You’d pull up and within seconds bikes would appear from everywhere. Scooters, mopeds, motorbikes — anything on two wheels. Dozens of them. All lined up, engines idling, waiting. When the light went green, everything moved at once. Busy, but somehow organised.

At the bigger junctions, tourists would stand filming it. Phones out. Watching the take-off. Fair enough — the sheer volume of traffic was something to take in when you saw it all at once.

I was riding with headphones in as well. Music playing.

Probably not the smartest idea, but it added to the whole thing. It felt surreal. Like being inside a video game. You’re moving, everything else is moving, lights everywhere, noise slightly dulled, just reacting to what’s in front of you.

Tuk tuks flew past with exhausts that sounded like they belonged on Ferraris. Way louder than they had any right to be. You’d hear them before you saw them.

Other tourists were easy to spot. Lost. Stopping suddenly. Looking at their phones. Trying to figure out where they were meant to be going.

And then there was me.

Nowhere to be. No real destination. All day to get there.

Night time was probably my favourite.

The city looks completely different after dark. Everything lit up. I rode around Wat Arun, then past another temple — can’t remember the name, but it looked like it was covered in diamonds at night. Unreal. Just glowing there. I didn’t stop. Just slowed down and took it in.

Ended up in Chinatown at some point. Parked the bike. Grabbed some food. Walked around the night market for a bit. Got back on the bike and kept going.

No rush. No plan. Just moving.

By the time I headed back, I realised I wasn’t overthinking it anymore. Still alert. Still careful. But not tense. Just dealing with what was in front of me.

Got back in one piece.

Still not entirely sure how.