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October 02, 2005
Floods and Fools
So we have had some flooding over the past few days. We got warning of them Wednesday, saw the sandbags go up and water rising sharply with some flooding Thursday, full on flooding Thursday and Friday, and receding waters Saturday and Sunday. In the picture gallery there are many photos. Friday night I ventured out to the Night Bazaar area of town near my hotel. It was still as much as 1m underwater. For the most part people were in good spirits and very cheerful. These merry lads were walking down the main Night Bazaar drag.
Saturday I stayed away, but Sunday morning seemed like a great time to check out how things were going. So after heading down towards the flower, etc. market along the River Ping I was stopped by a big pool of water just north of the Iron Bridge. Many cars, trucks and mopeds were going through the water so it seemed safe to do so myself. Ooops. Halfway towards dry land my Honda died in about 25cm of water. After pushing it the rest of the way, trying to let it dry out, and attempting to start it back up I was getting desperate. That is when people started to help out.
Within 30 minutes there were maybe five people inspecting and tinkering with my moped. Within 45 minutes there were over a dozen folks, including a traffic police man, working on my bike in the middle of the street—only one of which spoke English. Finally, after over an hour and a new spark plug, I was on my way…of course following deep bows and “thank you”s from myself. Some day I’ll figure out how to pronounce it properly in Thai.
Moral of the story: 1) Thai people are really nice-n-helpful and 2) one should never drive their scooter through deep water if they don’t know how to fix it.
Posted by stu at October 2, 2005 02:25 PM
Comments
Correction:
Moral of the story: 1) one should never drive their scooter through deep water. Period.
This goes for cars as well, not only because of the "filling the exhaust system with water" problem, but because of the huge inertia the moving water has (relative to a car's inertia) when crossing a flooded road.
Isn't it fun learning these things, even though we are supposedly adults, and at least one person I know did enough "off-road" driving in his parent's car for several lifetimes?
Har har har.
Seriously though, I enjoyed the pics and it is great to see you volunteering,
Whitey
Posted by: Whitey at October 4, 2005 07:52 PM