Flood-wary Bangkok is contrast of misery, normalcy

On one side of Bangkok, you'll find the victims of Thailand's worst flooding in half a century. They float down trash-strewn waterways, paddling washtubs with wicker brooms over submerged neighborhoods.
Just a few miles (kilometers) away, you'll find something else entirely: well-heeled shoppers perusing bustling malls decorated with newly hung Halloween decorations and couples sipping espresso in the air-conditioned comfort of ultrachic cafes.

Although catastrophic flooding has devastated a third of this Southeast Asian nation and submerged some of the capital's northernmost districts, life is going on for the majority of this sprawling metropolis of 9 million people.

The desperate images of disaster contrast sharply with scenes of total normality -- from night-owls drinking cocktails in red-light districts to tourists enjoying relaxing foot massages in faux-leather chairs downtown.

An exodus of thousands of Bangkok residents to nearby resorts and a government-ordered five-day holiday have left the notoriously congested city unusually easy to maneuver by taxi and three-wheeled tuk-tuk.

"It's better, in a way," Nicole Attwater of Sydney said Sunday, adding that she was happy to brave some flooding to see the Grand Palace, the gold-studded former seat of the Thai monarchy, with far lighter crowds than normal on a sunny weekend morning.

"It's a good time to come, because it's quiet," she said.

Most of Bangkok is dry, with little to indicate that anything is wrong -- except for the ominous walls of sandbags stacked around hotels and homes, and the apocalyptic predictions of everyone from expatriate bloggers to some members of the Thai government.

Yet, the threat of floodwaters sweeping through the city is still real. Nationwide, 381 people have died in the flooding over the last three months, and 110,000 more have been displaced -- 10,000 of them in Bangkok, according to government figures. The catastrophe has put hundreds of thousands of people out of work and cost billions of dollars in damage -- a bill that grows larger by the day.

Among items struck from tourists' agendas: shopping for crafts at the popular Chatuchak weekend market and dinner cruises down the city's Chao Phraya river -- all canceled due to the high waters. The river swelled to a record high level early Sunday, spilling into some neighborhoods.

Fears over worse-case scenarios and travel warnings issued by foreign governments have slashed visitors by half at sites like the Grand Palace and the giant gold-plated Reclining Buddha inside Bangkok's Wat Pho temple complex.

But the biggest problem by far, said tour guide Keerati Atui, is the media, which he said have given the impression that most of Bangkok is under water.

"Look around," he said, gesturing to lines of tourists streaming into the palace. "It's dry. Everything here is normal