About the weather
From our mothers, we hear that the news are reporting the most horrific floods in most of Thailand. This includes Bangkok. So let me address the weather first.
We arrived to Bangkok at 6 am today and were greeted by a pretty and warm sunrise. And we didn't see any water as the taxi took us to the hotel.
OK, we saw a little water. This is the view of the street in front of our hotel:
Mothers, don't worry! We live on the 4th floor.
As we walked out to the main street, there was no water. However, we saw that the shops were building walls to protect themselves against the flood.
We were kinda surprised by this as there was not a cloud in the sky.
Later we learned from a shop owner is that there is a "controlled" flood that happens between 5 and 7 pm. Which means that a certain amount of water is released from a levy. It runs through this main street and is expected to drain in 2 hours.
This is what the street looked like in the evening. Note that no more water got to our hotel.
Throughout the day we saw flooding in some neighborhoods. The amazing thing was to see how the people dealt with it. Shops didn't close as a result. It was business as usual.
Here are the highlights:
The most flooding was at a pier. But I had good transportation to make sure that my feet stayed dry. It only cost 10 Bat :)
And here are some flooded markets.
And only a block later it was dry again.
We know that the overall damage is great (especially on the North side of the city). But as tourists we are unaffected.