Life in Bangkok is never boring! After the big earthquake last year, I thought I was done with natural disasters for a while. But recently, I got to experience the worst flooding the city has seen since 2011, two years before I moved here.
After 48 hours of non-stop pounding rain (thanks, El Niño), Pinky and I awoke to news that Bangkok had been declared a disaster area.
It was 7:00am, and I donned my Chacos to wade out into the already ankle-deep water towards Ladphrao MRT Station which has a small but well-stocked Gourmet Market supermarket.
Already, a number of stalled-out cars had been abandoned on the flooded streets, and we would see more and more appearing as the day wore on and the water kept rising.
Even at 7am, the crowds at the grocery store were insane! I guess everyone learned their lessons from the last time the city flooded, and had already started preparing supplies.
I stocked up on a few days' worth of canned and dry food as well as a few 5-litre jugs of water in case we lost power (which fortunately didn't end up happening).
I'm glad that I did, because in the afternoon I decided to walk out to the local 7-eleven for a Coke Zero, and found that the shelves had all been completely emptied!
At one point, it even started hailing! It was the craziest weather I've ever seen in Bangkok!
By the next morning, the water levels had fallen enough that we were able to resume our lives more or less as normal, but it was really interesting to see how many cars had ended up breaking down on the roads. It took a few days for them to get cleared away, and suddenly, there have been a suspicious number of unusually cheap used cars on the market! I can only imagine people are trying to sell their flooded-out cars before anyone realizes they're not worth the money.
But we are all safe and sound here. The city has undergone lots of infrastructure developments since 2011 to prevent that sort of flooding from happening again, and the disaster was over much, much quicker this time.
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