Flood

Nic flew out out for Australia today at lunch.  So I'm on my own both in town and on site, for a brief period before I head back to Australia on the 25th.

The Mekong is in flood.  Rains have been continuous and unrelenting for the last couple of weeks, and rumor has it that the Chinese dams upstream have been releasing water recently to avoid overtopping - either by intervention or via spillway.  The end result, well, the Mekong has gotten bigger and bigger and higher and higher.  Last night we went into town for dinner, went to the Highlander - which is a covered bar right on the Mekong.  The lower half of the bar was underwater, and the toilets too.  The river had about two metres to go till it hit the top of the embankment there.  We took some photo's, but Nic took the camera with her to Aussie - so it'll have to wait to pop them up here.

With typical Lao lassitude, the immenent flooding of the Mekong has only become newsworthy in the last two days.  Up until then, nothing.  Public authorities are now declaring they have been ready for months.  Well - still no sandbags, and it overtopped some time this morning and has begun to flood the city proper.  I tried to get to it after lunch, but the police are blocking all roads.  Why? Because that's what police do in Lao - stop traffic and block roads.  The skill-set doesnt go any further than that, not in the majority of cases.  So I parked the bike and went on foot and yeah, sure enough, the river is now inside the city and a long way from over yet.  Once past the police roadblocks, there are no other signs of government presence.  The only activity was lot's and lot's of Lao (and a few sweaty and toey looking Falang) busy shifting furniture and goods up to higher levels of their buildings, and in some cases hauling stuff up onto the roofs.  Other light trucks, tuktuk's and motorbikes are busy hauling gear away.  The only people that look concerned and annoyed are the Falang.  The Lao all think it's a big joke - as usual - and that's not neccessarily a bad frame of mind to be in when your house is going under water.  Out where our house is is probably another two metres higher again, judging by the water level in the nearby canal, which is close to overtopping and is likely to be backed up by the elevated levels of the Mekong.  Now, according to the Mekong River Comission website, the river is currently at a level it was predicted to reach tomorrow, and on the graphs it appears that it's got a long way to go yet.  So I'd be expecting even the area we live in out here to dip it's feet, maybe by the time I have to go to work.  Will have to arrange to be picked up at home, rather than at the office.

I've been reading that the embankments around the city were raised in the 70's, and since then have been cut into, eroded, in some cases removed.  For the last eight years, many people have been saying that 'something should be done'.  Nothing, of course, has been done.