The government is busy making money from tourism. As long as money keeps coming in from there I wonder if they are going to be concerned about people like us,” complained resident of China town and tuk-tuk driver Weg Moon.
Tired of pushing his three-wheeler stalled in the rising waters on a road which looked like a river on Thursday, he had given up and decided to come back for his tuk-tuk later.
Less than a hundred metres away, long queues of bright buses kept coughing out camera toting tourists on a point-and-shoot spree at the Grand Palace and the Wat Phra Chetuphon 20 acre temple complex (which houses the huge reclining Buddha statue). The ankle-deep water outside the Palace only added to its attraction but when I walked into the residential area within, I was numbed by what I saw.
Homes and shops stood inundated with waist deep waters that local residents were trying to pump out. I asked Aim Chanosha (she spoke English), who stood in knee-deep water grilling pork chops, the point behind the enterprise. The water pumped was flowing back into the river which was emptying itself into the homes and shops. “We have to do something. We can’t just wait and watch the water ruin everything,” she muttered, turning the meat skewers over.
Few days later when I took a 12-hour double-decker bus ride on the top deck front seat to Chiang Mai in the north, the extent of the damage hit me. Swathes of water submerged roads. The paddy stood rotting for as far as the eyes could see. On the way back from the north, I felt lucky to get cheap flight tickets to the domestic Don Muang airport. I realised why when we landed on a runway awash with water. Even the routine safety announcements took on an eerie edge. In fact within hours of our landing, 90 per cent of the airport was flooded and all flights were cancelled. With no cabs plying, passengers like me were glad to be taken on a Thai army truck to the Victory Monument from where we got transport.
At a mere 6.5 metres above sea level, Bangkok is now entirely at the mercy of its swollen waterway, the Chao Phraya River. “Though it rained heavily on Oct 11 and 12, what we are seeing now is the result of water from the heavy rains in the far north and north east that is emptying itself into the river,” PM Yingluck Shinawatra, who was on a visit to flooded areas, told media persons. Admitting that the situation was overwhelming, she said, “The fury of Nature is more than we can manage.”
Sand bags marking the periphery of every building and the construction of walls to contain rising waters is now a common sight with workers for the both tasks greatly in demand throughout Bang-kok.
As residents continue their daily lives, scenes of people wading through waist-high water holding belongings above their heads is a sharp contrast from the way Mumbai reacts when Milan subway is flooded. Most residents have parked cars along flyovers and bridges and seem to be keen to get on with their lives.
Their equanimity makes one wonder whether this is a Buddhism thing.
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