Hanoi's heat homecoming

Well its official, the Hanoi hot weather is back. The past two days have given me a stark reminder of what I experienced when I first arrived in Vietnam. It is humid and sticky and draining on the body.

I am a sweater and a real good one at that. I managed to somehow work up a sweat in London which kind of gives you an idea of my predicament. Here in Hanoi, the past few days, I have been sweating profusely. It is now a little after 9am in the morning and I am sitting in my lounge room sweating. It is not fair I tell you. I even have my own sweat towel which I use regularly; kind of like the ones you have at the gym. The only thing is that I am not at the gym. I am sitting at home trying to do some uni work. I am trying to eat breakfast. I am trying to prepare some lessons for school and all I can do is sweat.

The heat does its best to sap all the energy out of you. By mid afternoon you don't feel like doing anything apart from staring into the fan in a brain dead stupor. This is about the time I have to get ready to go to work. I have to wear a suit (well at least pants and a shirt) to work and the thought of riding your bike through peak hour in a goddamn suit is soul crushing. I make a compromise with myself. I ditch the shoes and wear thongs/flip flops, throw on the pair of suit pants and a singlet on top. I fold my shirt and put it in my backpack. It is definitely not the most stylish look but I am lucky that the fashion police don't come out much in Hanoi.

Once at work I down a few glasses of water and sit at the table trying to relax. Over the next ten minutes up to one hundred kids pass by saying their hellos as I try to mentally prepare for the next 3 hours of teaching. Most of the classrooms have AC, thank god, which allows my rubbish body cooling system to slowly adapt and I am just about normal when I have to leave and go to the next class. One room does not have AC, instead just a fan, which is not enough for my pained body. The sweat builds almost instantly. I can feel the droplets build on my brow. I have a book in one hand and a marker in the other, trying to explain a very important point, when the droplet slowly runs down the top of nose. I can feel it of course and mid sentence I turn around towards the board, lift my arm and rub my nose and face with my shirt in a quick but I imagine comical motion, only to complete the loop back towards the class. I then continue my sentence as if nothing had happened.

By the time I get home I feel and am very dirty. I have a shower which gets rid of the filth but I can't evade the sweating; even after a long cold shower. Summer has not even arrived yet so it is going to be a long few months for me. It seems whether I like it or not sweat and me are going to inseparable for quite a while now. We will have to become good friends I guess and try to get along. The only problem is, I hate the guy.