Hồ Chí Minh Heat

A little over a year ago, Red and I left China and moved to Vietnam. We have been in Hội An since August.

I've written several times about how much better life is here than Beijing. The cost of living is significantly lower. We have cleaner air, live on the coast, people are friendlier, food is fantastic, and (my favorite) it never gets cold.

The winters in Beijing are brutal and when you have to walk everywhere because you don't have a car you have to be very careful not to trip and scratch someone else's car with your nipples.

There is, however, a downside to living in a place where it never gets cold. The summers are on the extreme opposite of the spectrum.

It is so incredibly hot. All the time. Even the nighttime does not give much relief. Sitting in my living room at midnight watching Netflix requires several fans pointed right at me and I will still leave a sweat stain on the couch.

For ten months of the year, it is great to know that you can step outside 24 hours a day completely naked and be perfectly comfortable until the police show up. But in June and July, the sun will fry your dingus off before the police even get their first call.

The sun is the scariest part. It isn't just the heat. The sun is much stronger here. Being so close to the equator greatly increases not only the heat but exposure to the rays of the sun. Hội An, Vietnam is 1,570 miles further south than St. Louis, MO (close to where I grew up). I can feel the UV hit my bone marrow as soon as I step out of the shadows.

Plus, due to my arthritis, I am on a medication that makes me more susceptible to the sun. My doctor told me to avoid direct sunlight. And then I moved to the tropics. Yay, me.

To combat this, every morning I drink a liter of SPF 450-infused tea.

To avoid the heat and the sun in June and July (the worst months), we try to run any errands that need done (groceries, bills, etc) before 8 a.m. and spend the rest of the day at home. Under fans. Due to the architecture here, houses are not air-conditioned. A few individual rooms are, but the common areas are not. And can't be. The space is too open.  This means cooking a meal is quite a treat since we shed our clothes before we start. We just try not to sweat into the food.

We are now reaching the end of June, so we are about halfway through the hottest part of the year. One more month and the temperature will be under 100 again. Not by much, but those few degrees make a big difference.