Friday, July 18, 2008

HERE COMES THE RAIN AGAIN...

Life is interesting when you live in a village. It's the wet season here in Thailand and last night Travis and I got caught in a massive thunder and lightning storm.

We were riding our motorbike from downtown Bangkok back to our home in the village which is normally a 45min bike ride. Then it started dumping buckets on us, sheets of rain piercing our poor little 99-cent wind breakers. We couldn't even see the road in front of us. Pulling over to an abandoned street vendor's tent, we joined other bikers who were huddled together underneath and trying to stay warm while waiting for the storm to pass. Lightning cracked as cars and trucks whizzed by us and the drone of tropical rains beat against the tent. Finally after it let up, we thought we'd give the drive home another go.

Little did we know that our dainty Honda Click also subs as a boat: hydroplaning all over the place, spitting waves and splattering puddles in every direction. The pavement had basically become a slip and slide. Our village turned waterpark with bicycles whizzing by in 15 inches of floodwaters and motorbikes sputtering water out of their tailpipes. "Mai Pen Rai" is the famous Thai phrase, meaning "don't worry about it". You can tell by these photos Travis took that most people in our village don't let a little flooding get them down.

We finally arrived at home cold, tired, hungry and soaked to the bone. Ah, but to fall soundly asleep to the sweet music of the sky's meditation beating on the rooftops and dripping down the window panes makes the crazy all worth it.

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