Feet of Clay

Bangkok is built on mud. For thousands of years the Chao Phraya River has been dumping silt at its mouth and reclaiming land from the sea. It's only in the last couple of hundred years that the area around present day Bangkok has been drained by canals, originally to bring it into agricultural use.

Now under Bangkok is about 30 meters of dark thick clay. When houses were made of teak and transport was by boat this didn't matter so much. Bangkok is sinking under its own weight. Water is pumped out for fresh water supply. Most buildings are on piles that go down to the bedrock. As the land sinks extra steps are added to reach the buildings, maybe one every few years. Roads are not on piles so they sink at the same rate as the land. This causes a problem where roads meet something that is piled like a bridge over a canal. Here every year or so the road needs to be repaired.

The rains have come a little early this year. They started on Sunday and continued yesterday. The rain water cannot permeate the clay quickly so it just sits on the surface for while. The roads turn into canals quite quickly. Ah well, this year I'm driving a diesel so at least I don't have to worry about the engine electrics getting wet and stalling in the middle of a flooded road.