yes, that was our hallway....
A guy burst into our house on Friday night wearing a blue 'wife-beater' singlet, a pair of boardies & flip flops, wielding a sledgehammer in his right hand. He knocked the top off some tiles in the kitchen then smashed a hole in the back wall. Ten minutes later he strolled out the way he came and we said, "thank you"...
It was just after 10pm and I was reading in bed when I responded to the urgent sound of the doorbell being pressed repeatedly. I skipped down three flights of stairs, unlocked the padlock and opened the French doors to see my neighbour standing in front of me in her usual daytime/ nightime/ anytime cotton PJ's. She yelled, "The water is coming!" Even as that short phrase left her mouth, the first wave of water gushed over my toes. Then started the scramble. We hoisted most of the furniture from out lounge/ meeting room up to the first floor. We unplugged the computers and stacked books, files and folders from the bottom levels of the bookshelf. We lifted our 50kg of rice out of the murky waters. Then we waited....
Heavy rains in over six provinces in NE Thailand meant that the swirling rivers spilled over to NW Cambodia over the weekend. According to today's Bangkok Post, one of those provinces (Nakhon Ratchasima) experienced the worst flooding in 50 years.
In our house, we had a new tributary flowing about 20cm deep for almost 24 hours. There were all kinds of creatures caught in the flow: frogs, centipedes, crickets, fish and earthworms. I saw the usual street rubbish float down our hallway: soy sauce bottles, soda cans, straws, an empty tube of beauty cream.... There were a few larger items too: driftwood and branches... again, all these floated effortlessly through our doorway, past the loungeroom, through to the kitchen and over the back step.
On Saturday night and Sunday we syphoned & scooped; mopped and cleaned. Now things are back to business (but Internet in our office has been down since the storm...) However, many houses in Poipet are still flooded. Even so, the people I chat with are still positive! The common reply to the question, "What do you when it floods?" is "Fish".
It was just after 10pm and I was reading in bed when I responded to the urgent sound of the doorbell being pressed repeatedly. I skipped down three flights of stairs, unlocked the padlock and opened the French doors to see my neighbour standing in front of me in her usual daytime/ nightime/ anytime cotton PJ's. She yelled, "The water is coming!" Even as that short phrase left her mouth, the first wave of water gushed over my toes. Then started the scramble. We hoisted most of the furniture from out lounge/ meeting room up to the first floor. We unplugged the computers and stacked books, files and folders from the bottom levels of the bookshelf. We lifted our 50kg of rice out of the murky waters. Then we waited....
Heavy rains in over six provinces in NE Thailand meant that the swirling rivers spilled over to NW Cambodia over the weekend. According to today's Bangkok Post, one of those provinces (Nakhon Ratchasima) experienced the worst flooding in 50 years.
In our house, we had a new tributary flowing about 20cm deep for almost 24 hours. There were all kinds of creatures caught in the flow: frogs, centipedes, crickets, fish and earthworms. I saw the usual street rubbish float down our hallway: soy sauce bottles, soda cans, straws, an empty tube of beauty cream.... There were a few larger items too: driftwood and branches... again, all these floated effortlessly through our doorway, past the loungeroom, through to the kitchen and over the back step.
On Saturday night and Sunday we syphoned & scooped; mopped and cleaned. Now things are back to business (but Internet in our office has been down since the storm...) However, many houses in Poipet are still flooded. Even so, the people I chat with are still positive! The common reply to the question, "What do you when it floods?" is "Fish".
posted by pip @ 8:51 am
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