Bangkok after the rain: The return of the Venice of the East

Every day on average, 1,225 new cars are registered, while the length of the combined road network remains constant at 4,149 kilometres. These vehicles participate in the magnificent light show every evening after the rain that turns roads into canals. And the show lasts for hours. 

Out of necessity, the residents of this city have learned to master mass meditation. It is an exercise that makes sitting behind a steering wheel for hours perhaps the most productive time of their day.

Those who are not so good at meditation fidget with their gadgets that do not fully cooperate during these few hours. This is due to our “earlier” generation mobile communications network, while most neighboring countries have already opted for the more forward-looking generation. The uncanny ways by which the transmission of voice data bounces between the already narrow and even narrower bands give real meaning to the Yellow Pages’ advertisement, “Let your fingers do the talking.” In the end, in most cases, meditation seems to be a more sensible choice.

Children in Bangkok grow up on the fly during long hours on the roads-turned-canals. They eat, drink, do homework, or simply be naturally rambunctious in the little spaces where they are confined. Who said it takes a village to raise a family? Here, we need only a universe of a few square metres.

This city is equipped with giant drainage tunnels that are more tunnel than drainage. These tunnels, in and of themselves, represent civil engineering ingenuity. The last anybody heard about them was they were still awaiting water from the canals around the city to reach them, so they could then fulfill both parts of their name. If these tunnels are the bloopers, the taxpayers are the dupes.

Across this city, residents are building their own dykes, ditches, drains, trenches and barricades to ward off water from surrounding canals that could spill over into their living rooms or bedrooms. There is no coordinated plan or implementation. It fits with our traditional ethos: to follow one’s own whim is to be Thai, and vice versa. 

It is suspected that the sandbags, sand and debris from fortifications from last year’s floods have found their way into the city’s sewer system, and prison inmates deployed as sewer saviours have yet to complete their rounds across town; the job is just too big for them to handle. There are only so many jailbirds, and far too many manholes they can enter per day before the rush-hour rain comes again. 

Back in 1782, when King Rama I moved the capital city to Bangkok – then a small trading post located near the mouth of the Chao Phraya River – the area was swampland.  Construction of an intricate waterway network – that was carried out during the reigns of kings Rama I through to Rama V in the late nineteenth century – gradually drained the area and turned it into a fertile agricultural spread.  During those years, the extensive waterway network served as the main means of transportation, and Bangkok was often referred to during those years as the  “Venice of the East”. Back then, the canals were dug with a clear purpose and were governed under a term has since been forsaken – “city planning”. 

The modernisation of the country necessitated road construction. Canals were gradually filled in and paved over. In the early days of “modernisation”, this was done with a clear vision and planning. If we take a look at Rajadamneon Avenue, built during the reign of King Rama V, we can understand how far-sighted our forefathers were.  Nothing constructed during these years was whimsical.

Unfortunately, our modernisation, which accelerated so rapidly from the 1960s onward, has contributed to the complete disregard for proper urban zoning and design.  The city began to grow organically, both horizontally and vertically. 

The fundamental incoherence of our urban growth, corruption and individual greed underlies the city’s renowned sense of possibility, but it has brought gridlock and traffic chokepoints. That the city still manages to thrive in spite of itself gives the term “constructive chaos” a new resonance.

As Bangkok turned into the city that cars built, with absolutely no urban planning involved, its citizens have had to turn to makeshift measures to deal with natural phenomena such as rain. After a downpour, more and more canals re-emerge where roads used to be. Unfortunately, despite our uniquely adaptable nature, we still have not found a way to turn motorcars into boats or gondolas. As the gridlock worsens, Bangkok city slackers have no choice but to resignedly embrace the central concept of Buddhism – tathata, or thusness/suchness.

Since the glorious days of the “Venice of the East”, Bangkok has wretchedly come a long way – to an atrocious second incarnation as a city of canals. The continued disjointedness and shortsightedness of all parties at the national, local and individual level in the wake of this new reality erodes the country’s productivity. Lest we forget, the Bangkok metropolitan area represents more than 44 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product. 

The ceremonial name of Bangkok – Krung Thep Maha Nakorn, meaning the “Great City of Angels” – has proven very prophetic. It is becoming more uninhabitable to us mortals, as we are not equipped with wings to fly around town and bypass the gridlock. Neither do we possess the ability to lift our houses up and away from surging waters. As our governments – in their usual incoherent manner – remain perpetually incapable of initiating effective response measures, we have to live with thusness so not to lose our minds.