When there’s a big thunderstorm in Hanoi, it’s seriously time to watch out.
The sewage system here is such that after 15 minutes of heavy rain, you can go from one street that’s definitely wet and a little big submerged, and walk to another street and then see a car stopped because the street is 3 feet deep in water, no exaggeration.
Tonight was one such day, only it rained for 5 hours straight.
Actually, it’s still raining now, but at a more manageable level.
It started raining during the afternoon, when 6PM came, no one at the office wanted to go home, partly people prefer to wait the rain out if possible, and also, as it turned out, the street was submerged. If you drove your motorbike into the street, it’d simply die.
I, however, live 7 minutes walk away from the office and normally don’t drive to work, so walking home for me was no big deal.
IF, the way home wasn’t flooded.
Which of course it was. Knees kind of flooded form what I could tell. Did not want to jump in and find out, but let’s just say I didn’t see any motorbikes trying to come through either.
Thankfully, there was another way around, twice as long, but not so flooded, so I went home that way, with heaving raining pouring on my head and backpack (with expensive laptop inside).
When I got home, I noticed that the neighborhood seemed especially dark. I didn’t think much of it until I hit the switch.
Darkness. Pitch black. So I cussed a little bit, turned on the light to my cell phone, went upstairs to my room, lit up some candles and didn’t do too much for a couple of hours while the electricity was off.
I kind of wished I’d had my camera with me, and could have taken pictures during the day, definitely something somewhat commonplace here that would rarely happen in the US (California).
Now I’m kind of wondering, as this was suggested to me by a coworker because Hanoi has a ton of lakes and heavy flooding means a lake could become one with the sidewalk, what happens if you’re just walking along in flooded water along the sidewalk, and then you find yourself swimming in a lake suddenly?
In that case, you will find yourself lucky because you are walking, not riding a motorbike, hehe