Dear Mom,
Vietnam just set a new PERSONAL BEST record for 24-hour rainfall. Hue (HWAY), to the north of us, last week recorded just over 100cm in 24 hours. Let that "soak" in for a minute: One meter of rain in a day. Yes, it means that the backyard swimming pool that we had one summer when I was a kid, with a little A-frame ladder to go up and over, and 3' walls and hard to keep clean ... the rainfall here filled that pool to overflowing between one day and the next. These days it's not nonstop raining like it was last week, and while Hue and Hoi An are both flooded per their annual tradition, the water is beginning to recede.
Vietnam Floods: streets ... in pictures: https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2025/oct/31/vietnam-floods-hoi-an-tourist-spots-submerged-pictures
It's caused us only the inconvenience of not being able to go out much, which is just fine in the context of things. We live in a climate with a rainy season, and we're good at it.
I so much wish that we could properly capture rain on a video, but it just never does justice to the violence of what's dumping from the sky.
On the way to meet a friend for breakfast this morning (Bún Chả Hanoi) we were suited up for downpour but the drive there was entirely dry. Then while we were at a coffeeshop afterwards it DUMPED rain ( 11-second video ) and we were glad to observe from a dry vantage!
Also, take a look at this very short video. It's understandable if at first you can't make sense of what you're seeing, because it is in fact a motorbike hauling another motorbike. That's unusual even by local standards.
In the video above (and embedded below?), I've watched it beginning to end several times (on silent) and I want you to know that everyone is obeying the traffic laws and rules. Actually there are two small caveats to that. The maroon poncho on a white bike isn't from around here and thought he was going to go up and to the right but that's a one-way coming towards us. So he loops around, and ends up going off the screen to the right, which is also a one-block one-way opening out into this intersection. He's going the wrong direction, but he's fine. The white car coming out of that street waits for a long time (too long) for his chance to cross; he should have nosed on out and been pushier--that way he'd have gotten to proceed when the two oncoming cars turn right. Otherwise, every decision in this light chaos is spot on, and if you're going to drive here you might want to watch on repeat until you feel the rhythm of it and find yourself making every choice in sync with the drivers you see. They're all driving perfectly normally.
Love,
Tim/Janet
PS. English Clubs
What you can't see in the photo above is that when I came to this English club the moderator pointed me to the group of girls and said "can you lead this table?" But the girls had never met each other and two of them were panic-stricken at having to talk to a native English speaker. The other three were delighted, but their cumulative speaking/listening skills added to about 3/4 cup, so we had 45 minutes of very slow, deliberate conversation revolving around whether I like Vietnamese food and their studies at the Foreign Language University. It's usually painful, but we willingly put ourselves into these situations for the benefit of the English Club organizers. In this case, this English club is run by our friend who was a student last time we came and who now runs two successful English centers, and for us to come gave his English Club a boost.