Originally Posted by
TimArchy
This assumption that Thailand is dirty and you need larger tires to ride there is absurd. In two years of daily riding on 23's, I only got two flats. The roads there, both in Chiang Mai and Bangkok, are smoother and cleaner than any city I have been to in the US. As far as I'm concerned, northern Thailand is one of the best places to ride on the planet.
In the cities and in the country, there are constantly people out cleaning the streets. Many are paid by the city and many are collecting things to be recycled for money. Not like the US where trash piles up along the roadside for months until we get a crew of convicts to pick it up for us. It was rare to see more than a few pieces of trash on the road during a long ride.
Yeah, there is a lot of pollution and there are places where trash is allowed to collect, but the same can be said about NYC, and Bangkok has 3x the population.
From my limited time in Thailand last year, the Chinatown area of Bangkok is just as nasty as New York City's Chinatown, in terms of indeterminate sludge, fish guts, and smells of decay. I'm not saying you need larger tires for it, but I would say it's far from clean. Though, I think, as with NYC, Bangkok is a little different neighborhood to neighborhood in terms of sewage and trash.
I didn't see many bikes in Bangkok during my visit there either, though certainly a ridiculous amount of mopeds, motor scooters, and tuk-tuks.