Last night I went out to meet Alex and some friends to go for a foot massage. This should have been relatively tame — we were to meet at a nearby subway station, which is about 25 minutes walk, or less than 10 by taxi. It had started raining in a spectacular way an hour or two beforehand and the weather was still rumbly and occasionally shot through with lightning when I headed out, so I figured I was very lucky to find a taxi quickly.

I hopped in, stated my destination, confirmed that we would turn left, and off we went. After about three minutes, though, we ran into traffic, and as we approached the area of the metro station, it got progressively worse. The minutes ticked by, and the meter registered the waiting time as 15 minutes, 20, 35. My 10 kuai taxi ride was 22 by the time I decided I had to abandon the taxi. I felt bad for him, as he was pretty committed to the traffic at that point, but there was another street he’d be able to turn onto and get away, though probably not for another five or ten minutes.

The reason for the traffic, as Alex relayed to me on the phone and I soon saw for myself, was that the street dipped down quite a bit to pass underneath the metro line (it’s only underground on some lines here) and with the sudden rain, the depression had filled up with water. Police cars were blocking the street and a procession of umbrellas were either watching or speculating on crossing through the shallower water on the sides. I’ve made a crummy diagram in paint to give you an idea of the layout.

Of course, it’s not so simple as being able to go up into the subway station on one side and come down on the other, because the elevated section shares space with a regular rail line. And of course, people aren’t encouraged to walk on the railroad tracks, so it was fenced off on both sides. However, this did not stop the movement of foot traffic, but merely slowed it down. The fence on the near side was a small one and a section had been pushed over into the mud, held down only by the weight of people stepping on it. We crossed this one and walked across the railroad tracks. On the other side was a more substantial, wrought iron type of fence. Some people were climbing over, but one of our party was a lady in a skirt — impractical for climbing over fences.

Eventually we determined there was a section with a hole large enough for a person to scoot through if you crouched down. Because it was only big enough for one person at a time but needed to accommodate two-way traffic, a self-maintaining system had arisen — ten people passed through one direction, then ten the other way. We waited our turns and scooted through, as I went I heard someone say ‘Laowai zuole.’ The foreigner went/made it.

On the far side there was a similar congregation of police cars, flashing lights and blocked traffic. The divider down the middle of the street, between the lanes, dipped down and disappeared into the water, which must have been eight feet deep, over two meters, in the middle. While crossing over we could make out the tops of two unfortunate cars which were completely underwater. I have no idea how fast it filled up, but by the time I got there crews had been dispatched and Alex reported they had mucked around and opened or otherwise unclogged a couple of sewers and the water was draining slowly.

We continued on to the massage place and got our rub-down. It tickled a bunch, which I haven’t had issue with at other foot massages. They did a lot of assisted stretching and such that leave you feeling like a ragdoll. By the time it was done, it was about midnight, and back on the street the rain had stopped and all the water was completely gone, with no sign of the drowned cars either. There was a thick residue of mud on the street though, and there was already a crew of guys in orange raingear rinsing it down with hoses from tanks on trucks, and sweeping the water and mud down to the drains with big twig brooms.