PHUKET: As Nakhon Si Thammarat became one big dirty swimming pool, we made a run for it, narrowly escaping as the water rose to close the main roads, shut down the airport and halt buses and trains.

From here on, the luckless citizens of Nakhon are on their own, as stricken residents usually become amid an isolating floods disaster.

The photograph above shows how narrow the passage out became on the main road north from Nakhon before it too became awash and was swamped yesterday.

Just another tyre width or two, and the route to dry safety would have closed for us.

Later, relieved to escape, we drove past a large group of cars parked on the highway, imagining it was yet another crash in the wet. But there were also several canvas salas erected on the highway - the only half-dry place for kilometres around.

Guests were gathering as a couple were preparing to celebrate their wedding. Yes, love conquers all. Married one day, probably evacuated the next.

No matter what fate brings, life goes on.

This latest deluge, however, is particularly fickle as it picks and chooses across southern provinces. In Nakhon, the rain was falling in catastrophic quantities, yet in Krabi, the sun broke through, effortlessly.

In between in Surat, we stopped at a village where children played in boats across gardens. The houses had been severely flooded, but not to the epic levels endured last year, levels that it is Nakhon's turn to endure this year.

On Phuket? Well, Phuket never does realise how lucky it is.