The air, until a few moments earlier oppressive and motionless, awakens whipping the palm trees that bend like catapults ready to strike. The wind rises and the dark horizon comes forward quickly, who can shelter himself in house taking with him wares displayed on the sidewalk, others prepare themselves to receive the blessed rain, sometimes damned. It is October in Thailand and the rainy season is coming to an end but monsoon want to give a taste of his vehemence and generosity to us.

Sitting on the shore to admire a work of dubious stability which is the bridge that joins Sagkhlaburi with Mon ethnic  Burmese villages on the other side of the river, we see the electricity in the air and decide to go back to shelter under a roof: the storm is about to begin. We barely managed to reach the top of the stairs leading to the village when the first large drops touch the ground. In just over a minute the roar becomes as powerful as a summer storm after a particularly muggy day. The temperature drops suddenly, creating relief from a hot afternoon and a barefoot child decides it's the perfect time to get on the old bike available: riding at full speed through the puddles that were created in a few minutes is a fun must be caught on the fly! The technique used proves him to be an expert in the field, as he could ride to the entrance of the pool and then lift his feet and leave the pedals and wheels at the mercy of the water. This is the trick to get the most fun. We photograph and stare for a while, until the rain drops and then quiets, all in about 15 minutes.

The monsoon rains are expected and a blessed event for people of Southeast Asia, because they bring refreshment and relief to the countryside parched by the sun, flooding the rice fields and getting wet fields of corn and soybeans, but they can also become the enemy as happened this year in the areas of the central plains of Thailand. The excessive amount of water fell in recent times has caused the overhead of a dam in the north-central zone and it discharged into the Chao Phraya River thousands of cubic meters of water which soon reached the houses. Towns like Ayutthaya and Lopburi ended up under water and the surrounding countryside, with all the rural homes were flooded. The people fled to the roadside, the only place slightly raised above ground level. From blessed and waited for a long time rain, it has become an environmental disaster of enormous proportions and forced to flee hundreds of thousands of people left homeless.

Cycling, we have suffered the monsoon only for a few days where the rain has accompanied us along our everyday stage. One day, heading east, we sheltered from the downpour under the roof of a disused petrol station. It had become home to a family of father, mother, three children and grandmother. To earn something for her family she bought a scooter transforming it, how many other people here, in a body style sidecar on which to place a cylinder, a plate and a cloth in imitation of the stalls in our markets. On the hot plate, the young mother prepares crepes full of brown sugar and selling them on the street. With the rain, however, is forced to stay at "home" with her husband and children. Her face, however, is not sorry for the lost day of work indeed, the opportunity makes the afternoon a party, in spite of ourselves we become the guests of honor. The man does the honors, giving us the first two glasses of ice water, served between rusting gas pumps that served us as temporary head rests, then giving us a little icon of the Buddha carved in stone. The exchange of courtesies continued: Veronica got a couple of chocolate bars to children frightened by these men without high-skinned and almond-shaped eyes; to have the last word, the couple gave us a pancake made by the woman at the time. Meetings like this are not uncommon but we don't stop to be surprised for how the guest is respected and revered in these parts... custom often lost in our country.

The monsoon is a source of life and death, an occasion for celebration and mourning, carrier of crops lush and devastating destroyer. The inhabitants of these lands are inextricably linked to them and await it, praying to Lord Buddha to grant another year of prosperity and abundance.