To Ayutthaya and back
Any Saturday that begins at 6 am is going to be a long one and this one, October 22, was to be no different. I was at the Plan Thailand office by 7 am and the day's work began immediately as we hauled 900 relief kits for flood-affected children and their families onto a large truck. We were heading to Bang Pa-in, Ayutthaya, about 65 kilometres north of Bangkok where flooding has seriously impacted the lives of thousands of people. Just getting there would be half the challenge.
Packing the trucks
After the relief kits were loaded and ready, about 20 staff (and friends) from Plan Thailand and Plan's Asia Regional Office crammed together in the back of a second truck and the journey began as the morning sun rose above us. We came across water less than an hour into the trip. We were only in Rangsit, just north of Bangkok, but already we were sloshing through a good deal of water.
Into the water at Rangsit
Cars lay abandoned all over the place and people were wading through the water, many trying to hitch lifts to one place or another. We passed swamped landmarks like Bangkok Uni and Thammasat Uni. It was an extraordinary sight and it emphasised how much of a bubble I'd been living in previously.
As we reached the outskirts of Ayutthaya the flooding became significantly worse. Dozens upon dozens of cars and motorbikes were half-submerged and people were sat around on tables above the water or else getting from place to place by longtail boat, jet-ski or any kind of floating contraption they could lay their hands on. Children were swimming in rivers that had peviously been roads. There was water literally as far as the eye could see.
Coming into Ayutthaya
Into the boat
As large and sturdy as our truck was, it could only go so far beneath the weight of 20 people and so as the engine spat and spluttered until it ground to a halt we arranged for a boat to come and transport half of us the rest of the way.
Going by boat was a rickety, damp experience and at times we bashed into lampposts and bushes as we got caught up in the wakes of nimble longtail boats. There was, of course, little chance of us drowning, though we were all wearing life jackets. Had we fallen out of the boat we would have been about chest-high in water, at most, but obviously we hoped to stay out of the drink.
In the boat
We made it to dry land and were met by the supply truck, which was considerably larger than the one we had been in before. We jumped on board and stood up for the remaining three kilometres or so. There was no room to sit as we had to share the space with the 900 relief kits.
We made it to the dropoff point, clambered out and were greeted by the governor of Ayutthaya and an excited group of local residents. People had already begun queueing for coupons to be exchanged for relief kits, tailored around the age of their children. After a quick lunch it took rather a long time to separate and organize the relief kits based ages.
This was common during the entire distribution and so with hindsight I wander if it would have been more efficient to pack together a single kit tailored to families rather than to the children. This way we would have essentially reached more people and saved a great deal of time.
The relief kits come off the truck
But that was something for the future. For the present we had to get the kits off the truck and into the hands of the hundreds of people who had come to receive them. This took all day and the Plan Thailand staff worked tirelessly in the blistering heat.
Around the way
Some of the relief kits had to be taken to people who couldn't reach the main distribution point. A few of us loaded up a pickup and then hopped in the back. After the first dropoff we had to figure out a way to get the remaining kits through the water to a commune that was under about 50cm of water. In the end, the local government arranged for us to travel atop a fire engine.
On a fire truck
At the commune we made a few new friends, gave out the relief kits, snapped a few photos and then went back to the main distribution point where the sweltering team was still hard at work. It wasn't until about 5 pm that we got everything off the truck. The bulk of the kits had been given out to families and the few remaining were left in the hands of the authorities to be dsitrbuted locally.
It was a long, hard day for us, but ultimately we we were there to do a job. People came from all around the area to collect the relief kits, including one old lady who paddled a little boy over in a small boat.
Woman and boy in a boat
It wasn't until I saw the extent of the flooding north of Bangkok that I really appreciated how bad the situation is and how stupendous an amount of water is going to have to drain through the capital.
So what now?
It is easy, living in central Bangkok as I do, to disconnect oneself from the overall situation. The area I live in (Rama 9 Road) hasn't flooded and neither have places I've been to recently, such as Silom, Asok, Siam and so on. But the fact is that we simply don't know what is going to happen. There are umpteen different scenarios that have been discussed, but the nature of the situation is that it's very difficult to predict and anyone who tells you otherwise is bending the truth.
The media has been criticized for things like purposely finding flooded areas to report on, but what else are journalists supposed to do? Of course they're going to find areas where there is water. While the central area is doing all right thus far, that really only accounts for a small part of Bangkok.
The media has at times hammed up the flooding while at others its downplayed the situation, which reflects the uncertain nature of how this is going to pan out. There has been a lot of confusion and this has led to inconsistencies in stories, statements, observations and predictions. For the inner city, a lot depends on how Bangkok's flood defenses hold up. We just don't know yet, but for what its worth, the general feeling is that the central, downtown areas won't be hit badly.
For all its critics, social media has been the best way of following the flooding situation. Twitter especially has been useful, despite occasional overreactions/misleading statements. Four hashtags have been commonly used: #ThaiFlood, #ThaiFloods, #ThaiFloodEng and #nofloodhere.
There's a vibrant debate about whether the flooding is really as bad its been made out to be. As always, ascertaining who to trust on sites like Twitter is crucial if you want to have a sound grasp of the situation. For this reason I created a Twitter list called ThaiFloodEng and limited the number of people I added to the list to a few trusted sources.
Reliable sources I've found include Zoe Daniel (@seacorro), Richard Barrow (@RichardBarrow) and Simon Roughneen (@SimonRoughneen).
For now, though, I'm going to wait and see what happens over the coming days before I make any further judgment. Getting into the debates about what will or what will not happen is futile and has tended to lead into slagging matches and name-calling.
For anyone thinking of visiting Thailand, I did the run from downtown to the airport and back on Monday and all was fine.
