The Great Bangkok Floods

You blokes think you’ve seen floods over the last couple of years? Mates, you haven’t seen anything, unless you were in Bangkok before they built the dyke…no, not Dana’s dyke…I mean the dyke around Bangkok.

Those crafty Thai officials got tired of getting blamed for the horrible floods Bangkok suffered every year, so about ten years ago they built a huge dyke around the outskirts. Now, whenever it rains they pump the floodwater out over the other side of the dyke. The poor people living over there get the flooding we used to suffer through.

Bangkok is only 0 to 1.5 meters above sea level. It sits on an alluvial flood plain with soft clay down to about 60 feet. So of course it holds any water that happens to fall on it. And without anywhere to run off to in those days, it would stay around for days, or even weeks.

I think it must have been 1982 when we had one of the worst floods ever.

At that time my wife and I were living in an old wooden house up on Lard Prao soi 98. That’s a long way out of town, but I had a beaut Ford sedan to drive around in so it wasn’t too bad, until the rains came that is.

It rained and rained for days, and we sat on our upstairs balcony watching the waters rising. I began to feel like Moses, except my house wouldn’t float. The downstairs area was about two feet under water. As our house was in a dip in the soi, we gathered all the runoff from other houses too.

There wasn’t much to do except sit there and watch the rain. But when it stopped I noticed that the garden was full of fish. So I got my fishing rod, dropped in a line, and soon after I was hauling in some decent looking fish. The wife, of course, commandeered them and we ate them for dinner.

I had met an American bloke from South Carolina working nearby. If you’ve read the story of the Tennis Club Ghost you’ve met him before. He was a tennis pro. And his southern accent was so thick it was a wonder it got past his teeth…well, maybe it didn’t at times. I had a hard time understanding him. The Thais just stared at him in wonder as he mouthed these amazing sounds that just barely resembled English.

When he came over for a visit and saw me fishing from my upstairs balcony he fell into fits of laughter.

“Ah daoo declayar, Marc, Ah’ve naiver seein anyhin’ lark it! Gimme a pole boy! Ah’m-a gonna caitch me some catfish!”

So we spent some very pleasant times sipping beer and hauling in the fish.

As the water started to subside we went wading in the garden where he discovered another surprise. The mango trees were swarming with red ants. You know, the big ones that bite like the devil. They weave leaves together to make their nests.

Not being from Esarn, my wife didn’t go out and harvest the eggs. So I was left with a garden full of nasty red ants. I didn’t fancy spending time in the garden with them hanging around. But my American friend suggested a fun solution.

He grabbed a long pole, wrapped an old cloth around it and soaked the cloth in gasoline. Then he lit it and started burning the nests. Those ants sure didn’t like that, but he kept after them and soon the trees were cleared of ants. The dead and dying ants fell into the water where they were carried off as it drained away. Problem solved.

Another friend of mine had a house over the other side of the city and we went to visit him one day. His Thai brother in law was also fishing from his window, but he had wrapped some electric cable around a pole, bared the two ends, and plugged it into the power outlet. He would stun the fish as they swum by.

Unfortunately, one day he leaned out of the window a bit too far and fell into the water. The electricity jolted him and he died as a result. Bad joss.

So, how bad were the floods, you might still be asking? A couple of feet don’t sound too bad.

We had just moved out of a house we were living in at Ramkhamhaeng University. The water over there came up to my armpits. The only way in and out of the university was by boat.

Sukhumvit and Petchburi roads didn’t fare too well either. I made the mistake of trying to drive from Asoke down to Prakanong one day. The water started out only a couple of inches deep. But as I drove further down the road it kept on rising; past the hubcaps, level with the top of the tyres, until the water was coming over the bonnet. By this time I was committed. There was nowhere to do a U-turn until I got down to the Prakanong lights at the Rama 4 junction.

Cars were scattered along the road as I drove on determinedly. The Thai drivers didn’t know that they had to keep the engine revving hard, as I was doing, to keep the water out. It was difficult and dangerous driving, but I was going to try and get back out of the flood if I could.

I managed to get to the lights and do a U-turn, and then head back up the way I had come, with water sloshing over the bonnet and up the windscreen. I finally got out of the deep water. But it was touch and go.

Another day I went up Sukhumvit soi 55 in an attempt to avoid the worst traffic jams and flooding on Sukhumvit. Bad mistake. When I got up to Petchburi road I turned left and crept through about two feet of water only to come up on the tail end of a monster traffic jam. I couldn’t go back. And there was surely no going forward. The center of the road was blocked by a concrete wall. We were hemmed in.

That day I learned what real patience was. We were stuck there for three hours without moving. As I was stopped just outside the 333 short time hotel I contemplated a quick pit stop, but I wasn’t sure when the traffic would start moving. Darn! If I’d known it was going to take three hours I’d have gone to the hotel a couple of times!

You know what they say. The one you miss out on is one you’ll never have the chance at again!