It rained all night last night and I woke to find Duan at the end of my bed plugging plastic bags under our door (to the balcony) to block off the rain which was pouring in under the door and had flooded the house! Luckily nothing was damaged although some items that had been on the floor were now a bit wet!
Over breakfast Duan thought that maybe Hanoi would be a bit flooded as the drainage system was not designed to cope with such high levels of rain. I set off to pick up my laundry from the office to discover that Hanoi was indeed in flood. The streets were aflow with water overflowing from the manky lake and some of the scenes were so unreal that I had to dash home to get my camera.
It was bizarre with people continuing on with their day like nothing was happening. The influx of motorbikes on the footpath which wasn’t as deep as the road made being a pedestrian in Hanoi even more dangerous and I was hit by side mirrors, baskets and boxes etc several times. Apparently Hanoi floods like this about 10 times a year so the locals were taking it in their stride.
When I ventured out again to check on Craig who was sick in the guesthouse down the road and get a pizza for dinner (sky’s request) I was wading through water that was over my knees. The pizza place had a white board managed by a staff member in an attempt to stop the water washing into the restaurant whenever a bus or large car actually managed to drive past creating what Craig aptly named the Hanoi Tsunami. I ordered an ice coffee (it is still hot despite the rain) to enjoy while I waited for our dinner and was entertained by the goings on outside and the staff sweeping water out from under my feet. It was quite surreal.
It hasn’t stopped raining all evening and I am not sure how high the water will be in the morning but we are hoping to wade out of here to catch a bus to Halong Bay to be tourists on Cat Ba Island for a couple of days before we board our flight home on the 5th. Wish us fair weather!
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