Come take a look at our cable jungle
2 November 2019
Together with Recreational Bangkok Biking you will ride through cities like Bangkok and Chiang Mai. It won’t be the shiny temples and gleaming shopping malls that will catch your eye first.
The tuk-tuks and taxi’s will not determine the general outlook of the streets. There won’t be steaming food stands and trendy restaurants 24/7. Or monks and ladyboys for that matter.
No, customers that come to Thailand for the first time will look at the very thick, sometimes a meter thick, jungle of cables.
The cables for electricity, telephone and internet are all running through the city at a height of 2 to 3 meters. Like blood vessels in the human body.
New cables are being added to the masses regularly. For new hotels, shopping malls, office towers and apartment buildings.
The cables are placed by men on flip flops and rattan ladders. Sometimes, they will dangerously hang from the cables, which really makes them looks like circus artists at work.
In very rare occasions old cables will be removed. As a result, the black mass of cables will sometimes block the view upwards. This puts an unintentional blind on windows. Or takes the sight on traffic lights away.
The Thai thought it was best this way. Until Microsoft founder and billionaire Bill Gates was on holidays in Bangkok. Bill shared a picture with millions of his Instagram followers how masts skew due to the weight of the jungle of cables. He calls Thailand a third world country because of it.
An insult of this incredibly knowledgeable, well-known, influential and rich man means unbearable loss for the overall outlook of the Thai. Especially if you present yourself proudly as the shiny modern internet hub of the Southeast of Asia.
The prime minister and the governor of Bangkok met in summit meetings. And decided to allocate 1.2 billion euros over a 10-year period to take the overhead cables underground.
The overhead cables have already disappeared along some of Bangkok’s main roads.
If you want to see the glorious Bangkok jungle of cables – an unwanted tourist attraction – in full glory, it sounds like the right moment to book a bike tour with us! Take a look at our full range here.