Rainy season adventures

I love the rainy season. I guess it comes from having lived with drought for some many years. Today I was out and about this afternoon when a tropical thunderstorm rumbled in. I donned my rain poncho, and headed on my way. It wasn't long until I joined the crowd seeking shelter at a petrol station. It poured, and it poured, and then it poured some more. At times the wind blew the rain in under the roof, and I ended sitting in about a centimetre of water. Being on holidays, I decided to just sit and enjoy the experience and watch the storm. Where I was, on a main intersection, it was interesting to watch the traffic continue to move, with some impatient drivers racing to get through the lights and others approaching things more cautiously.

I'd been sitting there for about 15 minutes or so when along came two young men who I would consider pretty clever. On the back of their motos, and in a bag over the handlebars, was a plentiful supply of plastic raincoats! They had obviously worked out that there was money to be made selling raincoats to "stranded" moto riders. They did the rounds of those waiting, bypassing me since I already had my big poncho on, and then headed off into the rain to the next servo.

Eventually, when it looked like the rain had eased about, and as I noticed that roads were flooding, I decided to head out. Getting out of the servo required going through some flood water, and then the main road home was OK. Once I turned onto the street the school is on I discovered that it was flooded. Not too bad, in that it wasn't too deep and I did manage to navigate it reasonably well, without the bike stalling. By the time I got to my own street that too was flooded, but not badly. Life's fun! Once the rain stopped the water went down reasonably quickly around my place. I imagine it wasn't so quick to get away in other areas though. It's still raining as I write this, although it did stop for an hour or so. Once again I'm glad I have a dry place to sleep tonight. There will be many in Phnom Penh who don't tonight.