Rain, Rain, Go Away!

I’d like to say that I’ve been exploring Nha Trang, but instead we’ve mostly been watching the horizontal rain. It goes away for entire minutes at a time, but now I’m back in my room, trying to decide if the dripping from the air conditioner that’s soaking through my bed is a leak from the rain, or condensation. Either way, this, combined with the small flood in my room this morning (that’s the second one so far, for those of you that are keeping track) has me pretty sick of this place. But we leave on Monday, I can deal for another day and a half. Those evil kids were up, running around and screaming at 6:15, but at least I’d gotten to bed earlier, so I had a reasonable amount of sleep in me. I think someone may have told them to zip it because they were quiet 10 minutes later, but I was already up. Ah, the beauty of being genetically programmed to be an early riser, much as I may try to resist it and occasionally succeed in doing so.

Regardless, I’m feeling well rested today. The group has decided that we’re going to go to karaoke tonight…I’m a little frightened. Itsy Bitsy seems to have a thing for American folk songs, and will occasionally bust out into “Oh, Susannah” or “She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain”. (I’m not sure if those are really folks songs, but I don’t know what else to call them.) It’s funny, and cute when she starts singing. I don’t know that all of Nha Trang needs to be subjected to my song stylings, but it could be fun. Hopefully dogs won’t start howling in the background or something.

I think today may be my much-needed day of decompression. PM is off climbing a mountain, the tallest one in Khanh Hoa province, and we’re all hoping that he didn’t get swallowed in a mudslide or something, because today is not the day to be out and about. He’s apparently a member of the Vietnam Mountaineer’s Association – I’ve seen his membership card and everything, so one would assume that he knows what he is doing. I was invited to go along, and were it not for the fact that the weather is what it is, and is likely to remain so for the next couple of months, I might have gone. But I didn’t, and I’m okay with that. As much as I don’t mind being outside in the rain, it’s only water after all, this is a deluge, and I’d prefer not to be out in it on purpose, with only my running shoes to keep my feet in contact with the ground. I had considered bringing my hiking boots, but I didn’t. I think I learn more with each trip what I might reasonably need for the next trip! The good news is that I don’t think I brought much that I won’t use at all.

I gave up and switched rooms. This one seems to have fewer ants, but the key element is that it definitely doesn’t seem to be flooding and/or leaking anywhere. They even gave me actual sheets and stuff, so that’s good. I’ve done a little washing in the bathtub, which is now hanging up to dry, and some time tomorrow I want to re-pack everything for our departure on Monday. In the meantime, since it’s such a gray and rainy day, I may take a nap, a rarely indulged luxury! Save my voice for karaoke tonight. I might also watch a movie on my laptop, since the satellite TV is suffering in the midst of all this rain and storminess.

Well, karaoke actually turned out to be really fun. The place we went was in the middle of a street full of karaoke places, and it was different from what I’m used to. We basically went into a private room – the building looked as though it could have easily been a hotel as well. The karaoke machine “scores” your song based on how in tune you are, and your timing. I’m proud to say that I got the highest score of the evening – a clear indicator of both how little the scoring has to do with anything resembling talent, and what the “competition” was. There was a good selection of English songs, so I introduced the group to such classics as “Boogie Oogie Oogie” (the title of which was very confusing to them) and “Girls Just Want To Have Fun”. Just for fun, I also decided to pipe in on some of the choruses of Vietnamese songs, which made everyone, including me, crack up. I have no idea what I was saying, and I’m sure I mispronounced every syllable, but it was a good time, there was lots of clinking of beer glasses and “cheers”-ing all around.

I think we’re going to take a tour tomorrow to see some places in the area, which is good. The weather has been absolutely lousy, but I would still like to actually look around and see the place. Coming at the wrong time of year doesn’t mean that I should totally waste the opportunity I have to be here. I took some pictures of the bay today, through the rain and fog. It’s funny, you can see the line where the ocean floor must drop, because the water goes from the brown of the shallow bay that’s been all churned up by the storms, to the dark ocean blue. Kind of a cool effect, really.

It’s been an interesting day, and I’ve had some time to decompress a bit. I’m still looking forward to getting back to Hanoi and unpacking, even if it’s only for a week. But it’s been good to be here, the work we’ve done is really cool, and I’ve even managed to get some work done on other projects, so even the down-time has been useful.

This whole trip has already felt so much more useful than the last one, and been a much better professional experience. I’m really glad that I’ve had this opportunity. I’m also looking forward to being home in the spring, and I think I’m going to take some French classes, because I really am serious about becoming bilingual, it’s just going to be a lot of work!