we don't need no stinking sidewalk

This is the sidewalk outside our condo.*

The sidewalk has not always looked this way. Just a few short weeks ago it was smooth and easily traversable on foot, bicycle, or motorcycle. Then, unobtrusively, a major project started.

Parallel red lines were painted along the length of the sidewalk. We didn't know why they were there. They didn't impede us in any way, although Mom insisted that we should walk between them. The lines remained for several days, perhaps a week.

The next phase was really, really loud. A worker was using some vile piece of machinery to cut grooves along the lines. The purpose of the red lines was clear! They were there to guide the worker in his use of the extremely loud groove-cutting machine! The purpose of the grooves, however, was not at all apparent. Did I mention this part was loud?

At a certain point, the grooves veered away from their course parallel to the sidewalk, seeming to point into the khlong (canal). This led us to believe that the red lines and the grooves were some kind of preparatory work for the laying of a pipe of some kind, perhaps a drain.

The next phase was, unbelievably, quieter than the cutting of the grooves. I say "unbelievably" because this phase was carried out with a jackhammer. It was the jackhammer that produced the sidewalk as it looks today. As before, the purpose of the previous phase was revealed in the execution of the current one. The grooves were put there to guide the jackhammer operator, as the red lines guided the groove-cutter. This definitive tearing up of the sidewalk strengthened our belief that some kind of subterranean pipe was forthcoming.

However, no further changes of status have occurred for quite some time. Could it be that this is the end? Is nothing else planned? How long will the sidewalk look this way? More importantly, how loud will the next stage be when it comes?

*Avid readers with sticklerish leanings will have noted before now that I use the words "apartment" and "condo" interchangeably in this blog. This is because (a) I don't understand what the difference is supposed to be in the first place, (b) it sure looks like an apartment to me, and (c) it's officially called a condo.