Hue rain

Unlike many Vietnamese who distrust weather forecasts, I just stopped looking at them. This is not to say they are wrong; they are always right.
The weather in Vietnam is unsettled sometimes and no one is quite sure when it allows, even in summer. Some days you might have to tweak it a little bit to say ‘it’s going to be so hot that you will feel like you are in the pit of hell for five days’, and then it will rain - heavily - and then for the next few days it will be a bit cooler (with a chance of rain). But overall I imagine the weather forecaster has it pretty sweet.
Last week I was glued to weather forecasts, poured over them and bored my friend with exactly how hot (not very), windy (very) or wet (extremely) it was going to be. It was almost certainly the first time I had even thought of looking at one for around 5 months.
We were greeted at Hue train station, at the start of a three day trip, with horrendous rain. By the time we were whisked from the train station to our hotel the water had already reached the level of the pavement. Post breakfast it had rose another few inches, post lunch it was knee deep, post dinner the canoes were out. We were politely told that if we had arrived a day beforehand it wouldn’t have been raining. ‘Ha! The weather was great yesterday!’ our hotelier said with more than enough sarcastic delight. ‘In Hue we have three days of rain like this a year’ he added, ‘And you’re gonna be here for all of them!’
Don’t get me wrong I’m not adverse to rain. I’m English. We can talk for days about rain. We have as many words for rain as the Inuit’s have for snow. Walk past any bus stop housing older women and the weather will almost certainly be intensely discussed. But Vietnamese and English attitudes to the wet are curiously different, yet simultaneously strangely similar.
For a start everyone complains. It’s too hot or too cold, too wet or too dry. It’s windy, it’s snowy, it’s just plain horrible. Everyone complains. Bad weather will always arise when you have that date or that sporting event. Bad weather will always arise when you run out of petrol on a deserted highway or when no taxis are in sight. Bad weather always seems to arise at the worst possible times in the worst possible situations.
But more than anything, anywhere in the world, adverse weather is just an excuse for people to come together. In Vietnam the relentless heat of the sun, or the relentless pounding of rain, may cause one to edge their plastic stool a few inches further under the canopy, and thus a few inches closer to one’s fellow diners. A courting couple may slide together to share a single raincoat while battling rush-hour rain. Two children may create a game out of an inadvertent stream of rainwater.
In England evening rain may persuade a family to curl up together in front of a film, rather than individually disperse over the town. Although even the tiniest sprinkling of snow may bring the country to halt, there is nothing sweeter than a ‘snow day’, when school and work simply close down, paving the way for a day sledging the nearest hill or relaxing under the warmest of duvets.
In Hue the knee deep water only served to further accentuate the beauty of the Ancient Citadel. Temporary rivers snaked amongst the ruins, hiding and concealing certain features, making discovering the Imperial City even more magical. Flora glistened with the last of the drops and children played and swam just outside the confines. The outer city functioned as normal. The braver Xe Om and Cyclo drivers still plied their trade and assorted bars and restaurants still buzzed with business. Overall the efficient nature that the city has learnt to deal with the rainy season meant our trip was not hampered at all – if anything the weather added to our experience.
Though we may complain, maybe the occasional plan-changing bout of weather may be a blessing rather than a blight in our lives. So the next time the sun and rain become too much, embrace it, ignore it, forget it, pull your plastic stool a bit closer and get talking; just don’t talk about the bloody weather.