Rain in Thainland

OK… I know that it rains a lot in the good old PNW, but we have NOTHING on the rain here in Thailand. We arrived during the rainy season… the luck of the draw with summer vacation. Now…the rain here is intense and, predictably, it arrives daily. It usually is ushered in with a driving wind. The trick is to watch the people… if they start moving toward shelter, closing windows and such, you know it's coming. All of the restaurants will move the people inside or pull down plastic sheets to keep the rain out. Even the open air buses, called tuk tuks, are ready with tarps on the side.(The tuk tuk was a little disconcerting because he was shifting, holding the tarp open and wiping down the fog on the window at the same time. Made for an interesting ride.)


And then… when the rain comes down it is an absolute cloudburst. Having failed to pay attention to the actions of the locals (it was our first day after all), we found ourselves standing underneath a very small, inadequate, shelter, waiting out the storm. Fortunately, the rains are generally short as well as intense so after a time we were able to put our Japanese skills to use and take off, riding our bikes with umbrellas in hand.

Now, I would think that a city with extreme rain during part of the year would have developed its drainage system, however, I am wrong. They all seem to have a similar problem with flooding. We sloshed our way through the streets, winding between the available cover, stepping into many hidden, deep, puddles. The street leading up to Lotus Village, our hotel, was the worst. There, we were met with a surprise...the rain was still pouring down and the water was up to our knees. We waded through the mucky, brown, fast running water, attempting not to think of the lack of dog scoop laws in Thailand. We did discover that the water is drained off fairly quickly, thanks to some huge machines that apparently pull the water off the streets – though maybe it's connected to the system underground, I'm not sure. The water, however, complete with all of the aforementioned debris, is poured into the river. If this is happening all over Thailand….