Minimal notes

It seems this may be all there is to it. 

Last night's TV news showed water flowing over pavement a few kilometers from my townhouse out on the northeastern edge of town, but by far, most of Bangkok is still dry. The government is saying that we're almost past the crisis now, and that if we can make it past Tuesday it's likely that things will get better from here on out.

Outside the condo, streets are still dry--they've never been anything else. Public transport has never stopped, power and water have never been out. The only inconvenience I've seen, and it's mild, is that market shelves are bare, from hoarding. But I've hoarded enough myself, and have food and water a-plenty for probably a week. 

In other news last night, I had the most horrible nightmare. I dreamt that the U.S. Constitution got physically, and irrevocably, shredded. To little pieces. Torn up in a paper-shredder and burned. Do you think this might have some significance? Are corporations people?

Next: waiting for the aria

And awayyy we NOT!

No pictures today, guys, not much point. Still dry as far as I can tell! I'm starting to think we're not really gonna get any water. Anyhow, just an ordinary, quiet day. TV shows images of water rising marginally on the edges of the already-flooded, but I'm not expecting anything dramatic either here or over at the town.

It does appear that the Thai government neglected to note that the city of Nakhon Phatom, next over to the west from Bangkok, would be flooded. Imagine their surprise today!

In the interest of complete recovery from my bout with lung disease, I'm gonna call it a night and get some more sleep. Sleep is good. I've been realizing I'm still a little weak. The big "P" can take it out of ya.

I will be writing daily (nightly) notes from here on, but they may not be long.
Here's the next: minimalism

In search of wet ground

 

Not, you know, that I really want it to, but I wish it would. That is, if it's gonna at all. Flood, I mean. But waiting is hard. Can't plan much, knowing that something big is supposed to happen, but having no idea when, or how long it will last. A flood in slow-motion, where'd they come up with that?

Spent a chunk of the day out looking, figured the water must be closer in somewhere. Rode the SkyTrain out to the end of the line. Still dry. Went back, changed trains, down to Sathorn Pier, where you can cross the Chao Phraya to the Thonburi side. That, at least, showed the river tearing along at a ridiculous pace and

slightly cresting in many places.

I realized this morning that actually I have been on the ground in another disaster, the '89 Loma Prieta Earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area. I always had the feeling that I had somehow caused that one. I had just gotten home from somewhere, and walked up to the front door. The second I put my key in the lock and turned, the whole world began shaking and wouldn't quit. Hey, what did I do?

Thinking back on that one, memories are very clear. We didn't have cell phones in those days, anybody remember? All the phone lines were down, or overloaded. I was in Berkeley. The two San Francisco bridges were down. BART (trans-bay subway) was knocked out. My daughter was supposed to come home from school in SF, but there was no way I could even find out where she was. I was supposed to play a gig at the Mark Hopkins that night, and though the power there was out, and all the staff was leaving, and the gig never actually happened, plus the business with no transport and no way to get in touch, I heard the band leader was complaining about me not showing up. Much more exciting than this slow, slow flood.

Well, folks, it's a slow news day. And that's really quite all right. The highest backward tidal surge of the is supposed to be happening right now, pushing levels higher from the sea end, and that was a hump they thought just might bring everything crashing down. If it doesn't, does that mean we might squeak through? 

Bizarre interlude: the grandson of Souvanna Phouma, the leader of a neutralist government in Laos during the Vietnam War, called me up while I was writing this and asked me if I could put together a Halloween band for his supper club. I was happy to say I couldn't do it. He's a nice guy, and all, and if I weren't busy, maybe I'd try to help out, but . . . it's nice that I have all this really cool stuff to do. So you're really going to have a Halloween party in the predicted 1-2 meters of water?

Breaking news says that levels are indeed rising, and that the pier where I took those pictures this afternoon is now slopping over. Will keep you posted, more tomorrow. Meanwhile, I'm just sittin' pretty in my cozy little suite, working on my words. 

Stay tuned. Tomorrow we'll have some real fun. 

Tomorrow: well, I thought we would. Don't blame me! 

And awayyyyy we go!

What was unimagined is becoming real. It is a bizarre sensation. For months we've been hearing about vast waters unleashed, and shown pictures of horizon-to-horizon floods right near home, but--except during some of the torrential rains--haven't seen any of this up close. Even today, when I had to go all over this sprawling oriental metropolis doing regular old stuff, I still haven't been able to imagine tomorrow, when things are supposed to start getting damp around here.

I spent much of the day in the condo, also, just working on this fascinating translation project. The fictional characters, their imagined words and feelings, seemed much more real to me than the prospect of not being able to go out without getting wet, or maybe even having to swim.

The glacial progress of this flood is probably responsible for this sense of detachment than anything. Floods just rush in and wash everything away, don't they? They're not supposed to warn you first. Here, you saw the pictures at the top. Those are from Bangkok and from today, too. Just different parts of the city. It's just inching its way in. If we want to leave, we've got all the time in the world to do it.

My Condo, my magnificent and beloved domicile . . .

Here are some scenes I saw today of life that was nearly normal, only a little different if you went in a store and found half the shelves empty because water, juices, and a lot of staples sold out, or if you paid attention to the new construction of water barriers, sandbags piled here and there with no use for them yet, things like that. 

And now it's late at night. A few minutes ago, the streets were just as dry. But then a rain started. A hard rain. They may not be dry again.

I've never been in a "disaster zone" when a disaster was actually happening. I'm gonna try it on for size this time. We're pretty well stocked on food and water here, and if anybody around will have power, I expect the condo management will make sure that we do, too. And somehow I think we will have power, and it won't be a complete disaster, just inconvenient as hell for awhile. But if we don't . . . well, I spent three weeks without electricity, and at the end, nearly without food, in the California mountains in summer of 2010. Nearly inconvenient as it gets. Did me a world of good. Whatever happens, it should be fascinating.

Rather than discuss in the abstract, I think I'll wait and see what it looks like tomorrow, and give you the glacial blow-by-blow.  But in the meantime, here are a couple more pictures taken in Bangkok, today, in places where it was not dry.

Some of you have asked about how the Thai novel I'm translating is coming along. I am going to make time to talk about that soon. Short answer: coming along just fine, and the process is wonderful and absorbing. I'll do a whole post, at least, on the problems I've run into and how I'm dealing with them. I wish I'd been doing things like this for the last 40 years. Maybe I can even throw in some talk about that while relating these earthly and waterly experiences, we'll see. 

But for right now, let's keep on topic. This one's fascinating, too. And it's past my bedtime, I hear my mama callin', so I'll give you another shout when we see what tomorrow's gonna be all about. So for now, guys, ta ta!

. . . Oh . . . and I'll try not to dream about all those crocodiles that have apparently escaped from the croc farms and shows around town. There are already enough folks thinking about that one. And the crocs ain't the worst of it . . . .  

Tomorrow's installment: Lookin' for some action.

A flood of awareness

Kids came for the fun, adult vols were pruning congesting vegetation 

Greetings, all. It's been too long since I last wrote, but I've been trying to avoid Catholic or Jewish guilt, though, really, why should I have to? I'm neither Catholic nor Jewish. Maybe guilt is just flat-out part of human nature.

Anyhow over the last months I've had so many thoughts and experiences I felt needed to be laid out and articulated properly for interested people to see that I just . . . felt . . . GUILTY AS HELL about not doing it. Hey, now what do I do with the "hell" part of this? Metaphysics again. See, writing is just too hard! (But the translation project is doing great guns, giving me some real focus). See, I'm still just plain doing too much stuff!

But now, with the floods, I suppose it's inevitable.

This, even though I am just recovering from a mild second bout with pneumonia. I contracted it down South in tsunami country, where I've been for the past couple of weeks immersing myself in another writing project (an eco-volunteer program, that's where these 2 pictures are from.)

Me w/Youth International Volunteers and Andaman Discoveries Staff on Koh Phrathong

The only other time I got pneumonia was three years ago, in exactly the same southern places, doing the same sorts of things. Exciting, productive, fun things, but that somehow exposed me to a tropical germ my body hasn't learned to handle right. Some freaky coincidence.

But I'm over it now, breathing freely and full of energy, and here to tell you about another naturally destructive event I'm now perfectly positioned to report on: the imminent Bangkok flooding.

I'm a latecomer to the topic, because of my trip and consequent derailment, but maybe I can give some perspective, since I've got two properties of my own on the ground here and am watching them closely. One is a townhouse towards the very furthest northeast boundary of the city, and the other is a 12th-floor condo a kilometer or two from the Chao Phraya River, which sluices and twists through the Bangkok Metropolitan Area very much as the Mississippi does for Greater New Orleans, each ending in a nearby ocean.

New Orleans had Katrina. Bangkok is about to experience the worst flooding in all of Thai history.



Brief background: If you've been following the news, you'll know the flooding has actually been going on since mid-September. The rainy season here started late, but came in with an unheard-of intensity in August, and just didn't stop coming. The tributary rivers of the northern mountains swelled to record-setting volume, first flooding the beautiful northern city of Chiangmai, and scaring the bejeezis of everyone downstream. Downstream fears became a horrible reality, as water poured from everywhere into the Chao Phraya basin and had no way to get out quickly enough, so they spread out . . . and out . . . and out, engulfing huge chunks of Central Thailand, and now is just sitting there, dribbling slowly out as even more water comes in to push from behind.
Hundreds have died, but the pace of the water gives time for plenty of warning, so the greatest loss has been to homes, belongings, crops, transport, and commerce in general.


Many major cities and towns are still in great distress. And these are all waiting for the water to drain out . . . through . . . Bangkok, of course!


Bangkok, of course, has had some history of flooding, and because of this has built around itself an elaborate system of canals, dikes, and drainage canals to divert floodwaters around the city--ironically at the same time as filling in most of the canals which more than a century ago gave rise to the moniker of "Venice of the East," turning them into impressive congestive, polluted, and poorly-maintained city streets.

This system worked pretty well at keeping the levels down, and was steadily becoming more efficient. The problem now is that there is just too much water behind the walls, and this is combining with a seasonal tide surge, highest of the year, which is predicted to come in from the opposite direction over the next four days and breach the defenses, inundating Bangkok.

The government is trying to control things somewhat by opening floodgates in certain areas first, telling everyone well beforehand when and where. It's now pretty generally accepted that some effects of the flood will reach everywhere in the city, but heroic steps are being taken to protect power supplies, and the SkyTrain and  subway transportation systems.

Right now it's dry most places, but it's also definitely here in some places, witness the "minimart" and "styrofoam" photos posted here which another former Peace Corps guy shared with me.
Anyhow today areas around both my townhouse and my condo are bone-dry.

It's late. I started late, and have been writing this thing entirely off the cuff, after being released from the hospital today. I feel fine, thank you, just a little tired. I'll continue talking about developments tomorrow, and hopefully have time to touch on some other topics as well. Be well. I wish I could talk to each of you in person . . . you're welcome to comment here, or e-mail me, for that matter . . . ! Till soon, then.

Next installment: Real or imagined?