Freakish weather conditions in the Battambang area Thursday meant there was a damp start to the day for one Englishman living in the area.
Moys Kenwood, 55, reported how he awoke to the sound of cats and dogs falling on the metallic roof of his bathroom, alerting him to the fact that he did not possess a waterproof raincoat. It was precipitation, and in no small measure!
He was in luck, however. The torrential downpour lost its strength during breakfast, and became a 'spit' by the time he set out for for work. Soon after he reached the school, the rain came down harder than ever, and did not stop all day.
Indeed, as the day wore on, the rain became heavier and heavier and heavier and heavier, until, one might have imagined, it could fall no heavier, but one would have been wrong. Renewed vigor made roads rivers, and rivers seas. The torrents were of Biblical proportions - locals considered building Arks - as 'hometime' quickly approached.
After the sudden and fortuitous lull at breakfast, Kenwood might have hoped for another in the late afternoon, but there was to be no such luck. Buckets of rain fell from the gray sky onto his head, and that of his wife, who had come to pick him up. At one point, a 2,000-liter water butt-full of rain fell directly onto Kenwood's head, reminding him of a scene from an old Laurel and Hardy movie he'd once seen in his childhood.
The pair set off for home. Their motorcycle strained under the extra weight of the water that was now saturating their clothes. Slowly, but surely, however, the vehicle made its way along the road to Tapon, passing flooded land and gardens, waterlogged rice fields, and washed-out markets. And still the rain fell. Monks in a Buddhist temple watched them from under umbrellas as the bike trundled by.
Eventually they reached home. Once inside, Kenwood dried himself, changed his clothes, and wrung his sodden underpants out.
Then, the rain stopped, and the sun came out.
