Travel photography — floods in Bangkok, Thailand
Bangkok flood pictures. Well, Im in Thailand with my photographer friend, Ronn Aldaman, his girlfriend and her family in what he refers to as ‘the countryside’ and to me feels like the middle of nowhere. We spent the first few days in a Bangkok in what I can only describe as complete chaos. In order to get into town to meet me he had to take a boat from the canal that is inside and outside his house, which is ordinarily a street. It took hours to arrive and he then had a series of awkward journeys through the floods here. Yes, Bangkok is still reeling from the effects of massive flooding. By the time we got back to Ronn’s area we could no longer get a boat to get to his house and nor was I in possession of a pair of boots that you need to wade through the putrid water on the ground floor — the area basically flooded as the sewers erupted. So, we had to sleep in the car in a car park, unable to open any windows as there were so many mosquitoes around — we had to spend 10 minutes just killing the ones in the car. It wasn’t the best nights sleep I have ever had but faintly amusing with the surreality of it all, sweating like crazy adjacent to Ronn snoring like a train trying to get comfortable in the two front seats of the car. I would upload a load more shots but the internet here is very very slow and hangs every time I get past about 2 images — so little by little for now.
Just before I took this first picture shown here a bus let us off basically on the motorway because it could not reach our destination. What followed was a terrifying dash across three lanes of fast moving traffic at night and walk down the slip road, against oncoming traffic to the utter mayhem of thousands of people trying all to get home with very little able to move. I nearly got run over by a bus but luckily I felt eventually made it back. This is the tail end of the flooding and its really, really stressful. How people coped for week on week when the water was nearly 2 meters high I don’t know.
December 20, 2011 at 3:34 pm
Ernst - Ahh, this brings back memories of the time I lived in the Philippines with frequent flooding, brownouts and telephone party lines. No doubt experiences you are unlikely to forget (ever) plus they make for good stories to share with family and friends. Cheers, Ernst