Hrvatski | English

Hanoi does not take shelter.

The rain came around noon, thick and warm, as if someone had lowered the sky onto the rooftops. I thought the city would stop. It didn’t. The scooter riders simply pulled on their ponchos, the street cooks moved their little tables half a metre inside, and a woman in a palm-leaf hat kept pushing her bicycle at the same pace, as if rain were not weather but furniture.

Moisture is my profession. I calculate where vapour travels through a wall, where it will condense, and how much protection the wall needs so it does not rot from the inside. At home, a building defends itself against water. In Hanoi I looked at houses as narrow as books on a shelf, balconies full of plants and cables, and realised they do not defend themselves. They dry. Every day, all over again, windows open, with a patience my spreadsheets have no column for.

From high up in the hotel, Hoan Kiem Lake looked like a drop that had forgotten to fall. The glass was covered in raindrops and the city behind it was blurred and tender, like a watercolour that has not dried yet.

By evening the asphalt shone like a river. I stood under an awning in wet trainers and, for once, calculated nothing. I just listened to the water knowing exactly where it was going.

Next time: Light. Hoi An, the city of lanterns, where the night is never quite dark.

Magic of Vietnam series: I. Echo · II. Rain · III. Light