Apichart Weerawong / AP

A Thai couple and a dog ride on a floating material through a flooded road in Don Muang district of Bangkok, Thailand, on Nov. 14.

BANGKOK, Thailand – One of the most striking things about the Thai floods is the sheer ingenuity people have shown to simply get around.

I've seen all manner of aquatic contraptions, from rafts made from empty drinking water bottles to crafts fashioned from larger plastic drums, with a bicycle mounted on the deck driving a home-made propeller through the increasingly fetid waters.

Thailand's National Science and Technology Development Agency even ran a competition called "Mobility in the Time of Flood," which attracted 89 entries and was won by another bicycle-driven raft cobbled together by a bunch of students. The Bangkok Post devoted most of its back page to the contest Tuesday under the headline "Amateur Inventors to the rescue.”

It provided a note of humor amid increasingly angry recriminations over who's to blame for a deluge that's swamped a third of the country and killed more than 600 people. The floods have also affected some 10,000 factories, and hit the global supply chain for automotive parts and hard disk drives.

Nearly half a million workers have been affected. Japanese-owned factories are particularly badly hit, and the government fears that many will curtail future investment plans. Japan is the largest foreign investor in Thailand.

The clean-up and recovery will cost billions of dollars, and shave an estimated 2.5 percent off economic growth.

The good news is that the floodwaters are receding to the north of the city. In Bangkok, the authorities say the eastern suburbs should be dry within a week or so, though it could be the new year before the water drains from western areas.

Don Muang airport and its surrounding areas still resemble a lake. The airport is only home to a couple of low-cost carriers these days, most flights now departing from a new airport, but it’s still a remarkable sight.

Blame game begins
Of course, few people now trust the predictions of the authorities, which have changed constantly, with officials frequently contradicting each other from day to day.

National government officials are in a constant sparring match with their city authorities, and, of course, rival political camps are accusing each other of mismanagement.

There's anger in the outer suburbs, where many believe they were sacrificed to keep downtown Bangkok dry. Angry residents have even ripped down dikes in some areas to allow the floodwaters to shift.

Some blame irrigation officials for failing to release water from up-country dams earlier in the year.

Deputy Prime Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong had a simpler explanation in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires. It was unfair to accuse the government of mismanagement, he said. "This has to be the result of climate change and global warming."

Well, up to a point, Mr. Kittiratt.

Many reports have suggested that low-lying Bangkok is vulnerable to rising sea levels, and, yes, Thailand had heavy rain this year – roughly 25 percent more than normal by some estimates.

But the great flood of 2011 was a largely manmade disaster.

The country has seen years of mindless development, much of it on what has historically been a flood plain to the north of the capital. Paddy fields have been paved over with concrete to make way for vast industrial estates and urban sprawl. Natural drainage routes have been blocked.

In the city, too, a once massive network of klongs (canals), the city's drainage system, has been replaced by roads; housing developments sit where water used to flow.

That so many people and businesses were in harm's way in areas that are historically vulnerable to floods, with the waters left with nowhere to go, is the result of decisions taken over the years by short-sighted and often venal politicians. To blame it all on climate change is an enormous cop-out.

Photoblog: Thais adjust to life in waist-deep water 

By Ian Williams, NBC News Correspondent

BANGKOK, Thailand – The floodwaters that had swamped the riverside community of Sam Sen receded Monday, but nobody was taking any chances as they worked to reinforce a wall of sandbags that had been overwhelmed by Sunday's all-time record high tide in the Chao Phraya River.

Men and women formed a relay team, passing sandbags from hand to hand along the length of the wall. All the time keeping a wary eye on the bloated waters of the river – known as “the river of kings” – which swept by in front of their small wooden houses. There were smiles and jokes.

A small boy pointed to the water line on the side of his house, a full three feet up the wall, as tall as him. But now, just a couple of inches of water flowed across his bare feet.

On Sunday, Thai soldiers had formed a human wall in a forlorn attempt to block the flood water in this area.

Thailand’s prime minister has told the city that with the passing of the weekend's high tides, they may be over the worst. But the information from the authorities has chopped and changed, and there's a good deal of skepticism in these frontline communities.

Ian Williams / NBC News

Shoring up the flood defenses in Sam Sen, a riverside community swamped Sunday during an all time record high tide on the Chao Phraya river in Bangkok.

Now what?
Kritsada Rakwongchai just smiled when I asked him what he thought of the prime minister's comments.

Rakwongchai is in charge of drainage on the other side of the river from Sam Sen, and we had followed him through chest high water to one of the dikes he supervises.

"I watched the water surging in," he told me. "It flooded this high in just 30 minutes."

He said he's seen nothing like this in his 10 years in the job.

Rakwongchai, a good 6’ 5” tall, led the way, and though the water was murky, he knew the route well, cautioning us about hidden stones, steps, holes or dips. Bangkok's streets and sidewalks are not easy to navigate – even when you can see where you are going.

We waded gingerly past semi-submerged wooden homes, where whole families had taken refuge on the upper floor.

"They are frightened," Rakwongchai said, a dog suddenly appearing and paddling frantically between two houses. "Some have started to move to evacuation centers, but many are staying to look after their belongings."

One woman pleaded with him to find her baby milk. While another sat in her window watching the water go by. "Because my house is high, I didn't expect to get flooded. Now, what can I do?" she asked.

Ian Williams / NBC News

Kritsada Rakwongchai, who is in charge of drainage in the Bangkok Noi area of the city, shows us a broken dike.

While many riverside and canal-side communities were swamped by the weekend's high tide, the center of Bangkok was largely unscathed and remains dry. For the most part the flood defenses did hold.

‘Water everywhere’
But this is really the story of two floods: those caused by the high tides, and those more directly the result of the massive run-off from flood waters almost surrounding the capital, the result of weeks of flooding in surrounding provinces, which has been slowly bearing down on Bangkok, picking off the northern and eastern suburbs one by one.

There was no let up for those areas Monday, though the more optimistic of the authorities predict that with lower coastal tides, the water will drain more quickly to the sea.

I asked Rakwongchai what he thought.

"There's water everywhere," he said, with a shake of the head. "Water everywhere."

Ian Williams / NBC News

Rival parties have complained to the electoral commission that portraying politicians as animals is undemocratic. The slogan translates as: "Don't Let the Animals into Parliament."

BANGKOK - It's election time in Thailand and a forest of posters has been planted along the capital's roads.

The voters of Bangkok spend a good chunk of their time stuck in horrendous traffic, so the 26 competing parties see this as a pretty effective way of getting their message across to a captive audience.

Among the most colorful are a series of placards featuring animals including buffaloes, monkeys, dogs and lizards, all wearing suits. They feature a large caption in Thai, which translates as "Don't Let the Animals into Parliament".

The nationalist party behind these posters is urging voters to reject all the candidates and tick a "vote no" box on their ballot papers.

Other parties have complained to the electoral commission that portraying politicians as animals is undemocratic.

Offensive to animals?
But perhaps the most heartfelt complaints have come from Thailand's vets. A seminar of the Thai Veterinary Medical Association last weekend suggested that the posters areoffensive to animals. "'Beastly' posters vex vets," was the Bangkok Post's headline.

Nantarika Chansue of Chulalongkorn University's veterinary science department pointed out that dogs and lizards are incapable of lying, which could not be said of certain parliamentary mammals.

Among the clutter of posters, the others that really stand out are those of Chuvit Kamolvisit, who leads one of the smaller parties.

Ian Williams / NBC News

Chuvit Kamolvisit's angry posters urge voters to let him fight corruption.

Chuvit was once knows as the "massage parlor king", as he owned a series of these notorious establishments, the biggest of which are almost industrial-scale brothels. He has re-invented himself as a crusader against corruption, exposing the cart-loads of cash (and payments in kind) he used to make to police and politicians to keep his sex businesses running smoothly. Chuvit appears angry in his election posters, which urge the public to let him fight corruption.

The posters of the two front runners, Abhisit Vejjajiva's Democrat Party and Yingluck Shinawatra's Pheu Thai Party, are by comparison, well, rather dull.

Abhisit led the most recent and rather lackluster government. Yingluck is the youngest sister of Thaksin Shinawatra, who was deposed in a military coup in 2006. From self-imposed exile in Dubai he remains the force behind the party, though his sister has brought a fresh face and some excitement to the campaign. With just over two weeks until the July 3 election, most polls show her in the lead, and there is much talk of Yingluck becoming the country's first female prime minister.

If, that is, the army allows her.

Deadly military crackdown
The military remains the most powerful beast in the Thai political jungle. Not only did they kick Thaksin out in 2006, but since then they've worked hard behind the scenes to undermine his supporters and keep them out of power. Last year's military crackdown against red-shirted protesters, who support Thaksin, resulted in the deaths of more than 90 people.

If the army were to interfere this time, though, the anger against them might be far greater than in the past.

The election posters may offer clues of this. 

During previous election campaigns, many candidates have been pictured wearing their crisp military-style uniforms. Most government servants (and a good many others in official and semi-official positions) have these. They are common sight at official gatherings, replete with medals for various achievements in public service.

But not this time, not in the current crop of placards.

Thai friends say this might reflect a desire by candidates to distance themselves from the coup-culture, and the popular suspicion of the military.

Something for the top-brass to reflect on next time they find themselves stuck in traffic.