Somewhere between heaven and a puddle of my own sweat, Vietnam:
I spent most of today trying not to sweat. And failed miserably.
With an overnight bus journey to Hanoi to board later that afternoon and with checkout from my homestay being at midday, I had roughly around five hours left to kill in Hue. Five long hours to try and stay dry in order to prevent sweat induced uncomfortableness on the bus.
Deciding not to loiter in the homestay foyer, I wandered round the backpacker district searching for air conditioned coffee shops and restaurants. Could I find any? Could I heck. All I got were cafes that had sporadically positioned fans oscillating and operating at speeds and power that was either ‘go slow and blow no air’, or ‘rapid rotation and blow your face off’. I could not win.
*The heat teamed with the excessive humidity in Vietnam is like nothing I’ve experienced before. To the point where even my sweat begins to sweat. And that is not a good look. Even in Hong Kong I was relatively comfortable throughout the day; although saying that, most places I ventured into in HK had working air con. Here, no such luck. Unless I chose to sell my already tainted soul and part money in certain tax-dodging, multi-million dollar, chain-store conglomerates, such as Starbucks or McDonalds, the struggle would remain real. And I am, as I write this, on the verge of selling out. In fact, I did sell out. And I have sold out on this trip. Numerous times. But only for the love of air-con (and camomile tea), I promise.*
With sweat dripping from what seemed like every conceivable pore on my entire body (even my ears, and they only usually sweat during vigorous exercise), I gave up all hope of being a dry, comfortable mess on the bus to Hanoi and resigned myself to the blatant fact that I’d have to sit in a puddle of my own perspiration for around 13 hours. So I did what any normal person would do in this situation; I cracked open a couple of coldies (beer costs less than water out here), waited for the bus, and accepted my clammy, moist state of being.
Chasing Amy-Lou 