Noise

Saigon, like many cities we've been in on this trip, is very noisy. There are gazillions of motorbikes with minimal mufflers, and all cars and motorbikes use their horns nearly continuously. (It's helpful for us tourists, trying to cross the street, because the bikes seem to appear out of nowhere.) Conversation while walking is nearly impossible.

Unlike in other cities, our hotel is not a quiet oasis. We chose rooms on the top floor, because they had better windows and were further away from the road noise. What we didn't know was two-fold. First, there is major construction going on just on the other side of the wall, so the rooms are full of the sound of banging and power tools. And second, the top floor was a not-well-thought-out addition to the building, and is clad in corrugated metal, not concrete. The afternoon thunderstorms, with heavy driving rain, are nearly deafening up here.

We're off to Dalat tomorrow. We probably should spend more time in Saigon, but Dalat is in the mountains and we can't resist the lure of temperatures only in the 80s.