Fleeing the flood

The entire time we’ve been in Bangkok, there have been threats of the capital flooding. Since day 1! The flooding had started in the north and slowly moved to Bangkok. My school in Sawankhalok had been flooded before we got to Bangkok, along with many other provinces, and the massive amounts of flooding in northern provinces has cumulated behind floodgates, waiting to drown Bangkok. And of course the capital is built below sea level, and is built around the largest river in the country where all the other rivers drain into, so it’s very backed up with floods from the north, trying to drain into gulf. So much water pressure!!!

As our month in Thailand progressed, the flood situation got worse and worse. We kept hearing about it, but didn’t pay much mind, knowing that Chula was built on higher ground, and we were far enough from the river to be safe. Plus living on the 7th floor of the dorm, I knew I wouldn’t end up swimming. The directors kept saying, we’re fine at Chula, but we’re gonna have to cancel this, and cancel that because other people’s homes are flooded. So we had lots more free time than expected! Finally one day, P’Tip, our director, said we’ll be fine...but maybe have seven days worth of food. But we’ll be fine. That’s when I started to get worried about it and follow it closely in the English papers. It was really hard to get information, but I managed to see how many of the outer provinces were suffering, and the mass amount of water they were holding back to save the capital from flooding. It was so scary to see a map of Bangkok, and EVERYTHING outside the capital was blue! There was water surrounding us! And a lot of it. Eventually, they had to cancel the entire orientation program because the threat of flooding was so high, and everything was so uncertain. I don’t want to talk politics (even though I am learning so much about Thai government and the new Prime Minister!) but there was a lot of talk about the government giving us faulty information. I started to feel really guilty that they left Ayutthaya, Nonthaburi, Rangsit and the other provinces flood 8 meters high while the entire capital remined dry. I can see why it as important for the government, financially, etc, but flood the entire industrial park? And not only flood it, but keep it flooded 8 meters high instead of letting it get to the Gulf? If it doesn’t come through Bangkok, it’s just going to sit there until it evaporates, which would take forever with all the rain we were getting. Every morning I woke up expecting to see my street flooded, but it never happened. Not once the entire time I was in Bangkok. It was insane. Because we were so ready! Everyone in Bangkok had sandbags in front of their homes and businesses, and if not sandbags then they built cement walls. And every day, there were new predictions of when the capital would flood. So Fulbright canceled the rest of our orientation, which included a teaching at an English camp. We got to teach at an English camp for two days. I taught with the other girl who is going to my province (different school). Cina and I kicked butt, and had so much fun. We had a class of 20 students, ranging from 7th to 12th grade, and they were so good! But the “flood was coming” so we cancelled the rest of the camp. So instead of teaching, we had a random 10 day break. And I went to the beach!

Sarah Lee, my best friend for the year in the making, has an aunt in Ko Samui that she’s never met, but begged her to come to the island to get out of Bangkok! I’d never been to Ko Samui (the third island in the Gulf that Jillian, Kayleigh and I never made it to), so we thought it’d be a fun get away. It turns out her aunt is totally crazy, and it was more of an adventure than we had anticipated. Her aunt was leaving for Malaysia the day after we flew in (last minute surprise!), but was kind enough to let us stay in her house on the West Coast of the island for our four day stay. Thank goodness! It’s so expensive to stay on Ko Samui. It’s less of a backpackers place, and more of a high so resort place, and we were so lucky to stay for free. Plus, we had to finish the things in her fridge that would go bad while she was in Malaysia, so we got to eat tons of cheese! I hadn’t really had cheese since I’ve been back in Thailand, and we totally had a wine and cheese party, complete with satellite television. Oh yeah, we were living the life. Not to mention her house is on the beach, so we had front row seats to sunset over the ocean every night. The great things about staying on the west coast is it’s where all the fisherman live, so it’s all locals and supposedly the best food on the island. The bad part about staying on the west coast is it is so far away from any activity. Nice to get away from all the tourists, but hard to get around! So we rented a motorbike to share from a nearby resort, which allowed us to go to Na Thon. Na Thon is where the ferry comes in, and there is supposed to be really great snacks and food there, but we weren’t so lucky on that end. We DID find a great lunch spot away from the pier where most of the locals eat. We picked two noodle dishes on the menu that read “noodle thai style” and “noodle with squid and vegetable soup”. I was so surprised when the dishes came out and it was Pad Thai and Lad Na! Well the Pad Thai I can see, but vegetable soup is Lad Na? Despite the confusing description, it was the most delicious Lad Na I’ve found in Thailand, and gave me hope for having Lad Na as good as my Dad’s. I had given up after many failed attempts, but maybe I’ll keep looking. We got back to Sarah’s aunt’s house just in time for a sunset swim, before commencing our routine of wine, cheese and Thai soap operas in between any news we could find in English. All we could find was international news on the flooding, which never seemed to change. The latest news was that the flooding would be the worst on Friday, which was great because we were flying back in on Thursday night. Woopsies!

Another day we went to hike up the mountains to go see a waterfall. We had meant to get there early in the day, but being on island time (meaning sleeping until noon) and getting distracted by a coffee shop over a rice paddy, it was close to sunset by the time we found the darn waterfall. We sprinted through the path, which was basically rock climbing rather than hiking, so by sprinting I mean we hurriedly climbed. But we had great views of Samui’s biggest waterfall, and got a ride down the path from a bunch of Kiwi’s here for a wedding. They were actually rugby players too! The girl whose bike I was on was a fullback, and so excited that I was a winger. I love the rugby world. They were super stoked that the All Blacks had just taken the World Cup title last weekend =)

We had a bit of scare getting ready to leave Ko Samui. We didn’t have internet the whole time there, not really a good source of news, and had no clue if we would be able to fly into Bangkok, and if we could fly in, if we could make it back to Chula. We spent our last day on the island checking out the East Coast, where the popular destination beach, Chaweng, is. After being to Ko Tao and Ko Pha Ngan with Jillian and Kayleigh, I must say I am not a fan of Ko Samui, but there was still lots of the island we didn’t make it to. Chaweng was a bit of an eyesore, but the city was a bit shut down because monsoon season is approaching. We made the most of our afternoon, with Thai massages, some happy hour drinks (their version of happy hour lasts for all hours of operation, and is named “happy promotion”), and a visit to the night market. The night market isn’t as cool as it’s made out to be, but I think again that’s because of the season. We managed to get Vietnamese rolls, som tom, sticky rice and squid on a stick, so I really can’t complain!

Our flight into Bangkok got delayed by an hour (so we spent an hour on the playground in the airport instead!) so by the time we got into BKK, the sky train had stopped running. Not knowing what parts of Bangkok were underwater, we decided to stay the night at the airport and take sky train back to Chula in the morning, just to be safe. We had spent the night at the airport on the way to Ko Samui, to save money and our flight was so early in the morning, so we figured we did it once, why not do it again! Our second night of sleep in the airport was less successful, but it was cool to ride the sky train back through Bangkok at sunrise. Bangkok looked so peaceful, but I think that was more because the Prime Minister called for a national holiday so people could evacuate the capital. Yep, we flew into Bangkok as the rest of the city evacuated for a five day weekend. But taking the train in, I still didn’t see a drip of water. Everything from the airport to Chula was dry, and that’s a really large portion of the city.

With rugby and orientation canceled, I spent the remaining couple of days getting ready for Sukothai, crossing my fingers that the airport wouldn’t flood so I could get to Sukothai, and running all over Bangkok to see Uncle Fung and Uncle Dtaw before I left. Uncle Fung had me sprint across the city to meet him last minute for lunch because he wanted chocolate cake at the Emporium. Then my last evening I met up with Uncle Dtaw, and my Uncle Jeet who had just moved back to Thailand this past week. I hadn’t seen him in a long time, and I realized over a hot pot dinner at MK Restaurant that I don’t think he’s said more than hello to me ever in my life. Except the couple times I’ve talked to him on the phone since being in Thailand. Dinner was no different, and I mostly talked to my aunt, and watched Uncle Jeet enjoy his meal, and smile and laugh and hardly engaging in Thai conversation. Interesting. Time to learn Thai.

Sunday rolls in, and there was still no flood. Seven days of flood food and water stocked! I was hoping to see a flood for one day, just so I could eat some of this junk! But I donated it instead. Sarah and I actually went on a search for the flood on Sunday morning. Our friends had volunteered in the northern provinces, where it was up to the second stories of people’s homes, but most of Bangkok hadn’t seen water. We took the sky train to the river, and being high tide we were expecting to see the flooding there. There was a bout a quarter inch of water spilling onto the road, and draining into a gutter, but that was it. But that whole part of the city had fled. There were just a couple street vendors, and a bunch of empty stands. It was apocalyptic, and anticlimactic at the same time. All the Fulbrighters wanted to go to the airport the night before we were flying out, because we all thought we would have been flooded by now, but it was truly unnecessary at this point. Regardless, we went Sunday afternoon and Sarah and I would be sleeping in the airport for the third time within one week. At least we got it down this time, and were pros at finding a good place to sleep. We left the group as soon as we got there to take a “nap” in the basement where it is quiet, and there are cushion benches, and we ended up sleeping through the entire night, from 6PM until 3 in the morning. We checked into our flight (at least Sarah and I were on the same plane, but would have to part ways in Sukothai) and were on our way to the provinces!