Flooded
Lena left for Bangkok today and we will meet up for the second part of our beach holiday on this Friday as the students have midterm tests so there will be no classes the next week.
Now that I am writing this (not now that I am posting this, I wrote this day before yesterday), it has been raining for 20 hours almost without pause. Speed boats going to the island are cancelled for today because of heavy winds. Lena sent me by sms that on her way back to Bangkok (I am staying here for a few more days), that some towns are knee-deep in water with sand sack barriers in front of shops and that the traffic advanced only at walking-pace at times. She even saw a boat on a road.
It surprised me how fast the towns are flooded in Thailand during the rainy season. A full day of rain can still be considered as normal here, still already a few hours of rain is enough to fill the canalisation so that water starts to flood the streets. Specifically, I am talking about the university campus and Golf View in Rangsit, not about Ko Mak. These are definitely urban and quite newly-built areas. Instead of a proper canalisation to the nearby canal, there are people employed at Golf View who remove the water from the streets after the rain is over with buckets.
But well, after all (at least) the Bangkok area of Thailand is built on top of swamps. It can very well be no matter how good the canalisation system, the water level is already so high that there is simply no place where the water can flow away to, I can not judge that.
You know the traditional Thai houses? Traditional Thai houses are wooden houses built on stilts, the ground floor only serves as a garage, workshop and all-purpose area. Living room, kitchen, sleeping areas etc. thus are all in the first floor. Now I know why.
