Anne's Short Musings

Yesterday it was sunny, ridiculously hot and humid. It took but a few minutes for sweat to cover me as we walked through the streets of HoiAn.

Clouds had been gathering all day, and during the night the rain began to fall. Heavily. With the rain came the wind. I woke to find a patch of lawn in front of our villa covered with coconuts and rocks. At times the spray from the ocean splashed onto our doors.

And this is just the start of the rainy season in Vietnam!

Anyone who has been to the tropics during the rainy season knows the feeling. The tension grows – and grows – until the sky can bear no more. The heavens open, and in a flash the rain falls from the sky.

This is not the gentle rain of a summer afternoon. It i s a tropical downpour, and as the first drops smash to the ground people squeal with delight and run for cover. In a matter of minutes the streets are deserted, and before long the street gutters are gurgling with water.

I had arrived in Luang Prabang, Laos, only a an hour or so earlier. The sky stretched deep and blue above me, and the heat and humidity were so high the sky was sweating. Somewhere between the airport and my hotel white clouds started foaming over the horizon.