There is a decent-sized tree just over the wall at the back of my house in Bangkok which provides welcome shade. So I was a bit concerned the other day when workers from the local administration rolled up armed with a chainsaw, explaining the tree was threatening overhead electricity cables.
I feared the worst as one worker climbed the tree, but to my relief he only cut down the directly offending branches and not the whole tree -- we had been spared a chainsaw massacre. The squirrels were equally delighted their playground had survived the chop. I would like to thank the fellow for his restraint, something not often seen when it comes to trimming trees in Thailand.
Hopefully this worker's refreshing attitude is a spin-off from Governor Chadchart Sittipunt's plans concerning the "Greening of Bangkok". Mr Chadchart recently vowed to have a million trees planted during his four-year tenure. Normally this sort of thing would be greeted with yawns by the Bangkok populace as just another empty political promise. But you never know.
