Rainy season travel in Chiang Mai’s remote north is never easy, but for students and teachers at Ban Khun Mae Tuen Noi School in Mae Tuen sub-district, Omkoi, this year’s journey to a district sports meet was especially brutal. The route from the school to Mae Tuen sub-district centre covers roughly 30 kilometres, a distance that should take under an hour by road. Instead, heavy rains had turned the road into what locals describe as a “sea of mud”, and the trip took nearly four hours.
Even with a four-wheel-drive pickup, the going was slow. Students and teachers repeatedly had to get out and rock the vehicle to help it push through deep ruts of mud. By the time they arrived, everyone was caked in mud and visibly exhausted.
Napat Sarapatsirisakul, the villager who drove the students, told reporters that the longer route from the school to Omkoi town itself runs about 80 kilometres, and every rainy season it becomes thick with mud. Even experienced local drivers in 4WD vehicles struggle to get through, with the trip sometimes taking around six hours of what he called “getting stuck and struggling forward.” He said vehicles regularly become mired in mud and have to wait for a tractor to pull them free, adding more delay, while suspensions, fenders and bumpers are damaged along the way — a hardship shared by villagers, teachers and students alike.
Villagers say this happens every year, and they’ve repeatedly called on relevant authorities to fix the road, particularly politicians who made promises during election campaigns. Once elected, they say, those promises are forgotten, and no one has returned to help improve conditions.
