The River She Is A'Rising

The rains are coming again. Somewhere else apparently, but they're coming down the Ping river right now. It's been a pretty nice day so far. Not sunny, but not raining either. And the river is beginning to swell.

So, of course I run down there. Crowds are gathered by the post boards. Standing in calf deep water and reading how high things are expected to get. Carts line the street selling a variety of foods. Pork buns. Boba tea. Chaing Mai sausage. They see the silver lining in all this.

I look at the river spilling over the banks. I see brown water with hunks of tree branches speeding their way south. More water gurgles up thru a man hole cover. Maybe I should get back home? I back track and find myself riding thru about a foot of water in places.

Our neighbors have a shop in the night bazaar. It's like owning a mobile home in a dry riverbed. It just seems to attract every storm. They got this down to a drill. They pull up in their truck and unload the entire contents of their in front of our place. He says it's only knee deep this time. Not so bad. At least they don't have a shop in the underground part of the plaza. Those places were half filled to the ceiling.

Our landlord has had a 7 foot heap of sand delivered. He hunches over the pile and fills various chicken feed bags and begins to help people cart them off to their doors. Last time, the water got high enough to make it into half the houses. I grab about eight bags and he shows me how to place them in the doorway. Then the little old man climb atop them and jumps around to help fill the gaps.

We're about to go to bed now. I don't know if the waters will make it this far again, but I feel more secure with our entrances fortified with sand.

"This is our Katrina.", says Thailand.