Political Unrest and Rain, Rain and More Rain

Things aren’t so great in Thailand at the moment, but the only thing that has affected me in any way is the continued rain here on Koh Samui. The Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok has been closed since last night due to protestors, and we are all hoping that the problems will be resolved very quickly. Tourists are still able to travel within Thailand via the old Don Muang airport – we had a guest arrive today who flew from Don Muang to Suranthani and then took the boat from there to Koh Samui. Mostly people are struggling with their outbound flights from Bangkok, so many people are just diverting their flights and flying directly from Samui to Hong Kong, Singapoe or Kuala Lumpur. We just have to wait and see what happens. A good site for up to day information is the Thai Visa Forum.

Here in Samui the more pressing issue at the moment is the continued rain. We actually had a break today for a few hours for the first time in over a week. Most people are saying that they didn’t think it was possible for it to rain so much without a break. It is funny watching how people still manage to get out, holding umbrellas while they ride their motorbikes, most people wearing ponchos with a helmet over top, I even saw one guy simply wearing a plastic bag on his head – I guess he didn’t care about his clothes, just wanted to keep his hair perfect. I have also seen a lot of people just surrendering entirely and riding around in their swimming trunks with no shoes even. When the rain does break, everyone quickly runs out to do shopping or errands before the next onslaught, and there is flooding in the streets, mud on the roads and broken umbrellas littering the sides of the roads providing evidence of the magnitude of these storms. I have a friend who is a school teacher at the grammar school down the road and her partner told me today that their sewage system backed up from lack of drainage and flooded the school kitchen with rain and sewage water. Lovely!

The photos below were taken on my way to Tesco Lotus in Chaweng 2 days ago. I nearly had water coming over the hood of the car at one stage! It was rather entertaining watching the young Thai teenagers trying to blast through the high waters on their motorbikes, only to have the engines stall half-way through and then have to walk the bike through the rest of it. I think the old Thai men were sitting along the side of the road taking bets over who was going to make it and who wasn’t! I suppose it is our equivalent of a good winter storm. The Thais seem pretty used to this chaos.

So, with any luck the rains will subside and the protesters will retreat and we will be back to big smiles and sunny weather in Thailand very soon.

Samui Rainy Season

Note the umbrella holding method

1 comment November 26th, 2008