Rice grows in water

Since Thailand is the world's largest rice exporter, one would expect to see many rice fields. As I have ventured in ever-widening circles on "my" bike, I see more and more rice. What is more interesting to me, however, is the infrastructure in place to get water to the fields. There is no shortage of water in this part of the world- much of the year is rainy season (but not now) and there are many mountains which, I suspect, lure the moisture out of the air at all seasons and feed the many rivers of Southest Asia. The more I get out here in Chiang Mai province, the more I appreciate all the systems in place to transport water to where it is needed. I do not know for certain, but the structure below, on the Ping River northeast of Mae Rim, appears to be designed to handle water for some purpose. The rivers in Thailand have been engineered for irrigation since at least the 13th century. There are dams and partial dams (called either diversion dams or weirs, depending on whether or not the water goes through or over) that are designed to get water into irrigation canals. From these canals and rivers, the flow is controlled by various methods to keep it at the levels needed to flood the fields. At times, the result is interesting, such as a place where I saw one "stream" crossing another, at 2 different levels, of course. I took a picture, but you cannot really make out what is going on, so I did not post it.

The canal in the picture below, north of Mae Rim, feeds other canals. One of the valves that contol these flows is in the foreground.

The valve lets some water under the road and into a much smaller canal, at a much lower level. Eventually, this water gets to the fields, where the laborers use mud barriers to get it to go where they want it to go in order to flood the fields. You will see these canals all over the place- sometimes they are streams as well, or maybe canals that feed into natural streams that happen to be heading in a useful direction.

Even with all that engineering around, there are fields that cannot be served with gravity. in those cases, pipes and pumps do the trick.

All in all, I am very impressed. Since this is the beginning of the rice growing season, I am noticing water in places that were dry when I first arrived a month ago. Over the years, people have put in a tremendous amount of work to build all these irrigation systems. The King has been heavily involved (indeed one of the huge dams is named after him). I have no idea of the economics involved, if any. The water just seems to be flowing every which way- I don't know if anyone has to pay.