Rainy Days

We are still months away from the "rainy season" here in this part of the world, but mother nature has decided to cut loose with the waterworks anyway. When it rains here it pours, and it's like standing in the shower with the water on full blast. On one hand, it can make things feel a little dismal, but on the other it has a way of knocking all the junk out of the air. When the weather is hot, it's tempting to just stand out in the rain for a few minutes, but I've been warned against it. It seems that the rain can be a little toxic as it picks up pollution from the sky on the way down. The one really nice side effect of the rain is that it works like a giant toilet flush on the city's open sewer system. Things tend to get a bit of a funky smell in the streets after a few weeks without rain. Between the trash in the gutters and the open sewers under the sidewalks, things can get to smelling pretty ripe. Nothing like the odor of "dead rat" on your way to breakfast to get your appetite going. For now, all the dead rats and other smelly stuff have been flushed out into the Mae Ping river and are on their way downstream to Bangkok and the gulf. Fishing anyone? I think about the funniest sight this week was a little Thai guy zipping past me in the rain on a motor scooter while carrying an open umbrella. I'll give him a "A" for effort, but I was waiting for a gust of wind to carry him off like Mary Poppins.