I get wet

17:03' 12/05/2005 (GMT+7)

TGL – Brooding skies and shotgun thunderclaps: when the skies open the full throttle of a tropical storm, the last place you want to be is on the road. Don’t get caught in the open. (Photo: Pham Vu Quang) For Elliott Samuels, who misses this kind of thing. Early evening, at home watching Riding Giants on DVD. It’s the tail end of a long weekend, and I’m trying to summon the body powers required for my upcoming kung fu session. There’s big wave action on the screen, and big wave sound with it, yet that low rumble that’s shaking the house by its very foundations gives me a sneaking suspicion that a fairly freaking serious storm is about to rain hell on the city. I meander out to the balcony, where a quick glance at the bruised skies confirms that if I’m going to get to this session, I’d better get while the getting is dry. These early summer storms whip themselves up into a terrifying level of wrath at a tremendous pace. Like flights of headless dragons they swirl and scud across the sky, bent on unleashing torrential rains to wash away any who stand beneath. And that’s when you get ‘the fear’. What if I don’t make it before the sky breaks? Well, you have a place to be, and woe be damned if a little H2O is going to stop you getting to your destination. But a little careful planning is required. Leaving the house, I slip into my wet weather riding shoes, neoprene slip ons, almost like the water joggers those damned safety kids all wear. I collect my plastic riding poncho - the one with the special clear headlight panel in the front – it hasn’t been used in a while and sure smells like it was put away wet. I move my bag from its side saddle, low slung position into backpack mode. With a tentative glance at the sky, I wheel my bike out of the house. The road into town is dark, the sky above in flux, ready to tear itself in half and recreate the big wave surf right here on the road. Overhead, lightning flashes and thunder barks like the sudden crack of a shotgun. Everyone on the road has one ambition: get where you’re going, and get there now. The road seems strangely orderly, with nobody pulling surprise u-turns, no stray pedestrians in centre road no mans land. Everybody is getting where they’re going, and getting there now. Traffic is moving fast, safety thrown to the surprisingly icy wind because it’s better to be dry than mollycoddle over petty concerns like “driving to the conditions”. The storm is to the east, just over there, ready to drop its payload off just around the next bend. Next bend, another, another and it’s not even showering yet. I’m on the edge of this massive storm and I just might make it. At Long Bien things logjam, crossing traffic refusing to yield to the straight through, and while the thunder cracks I’m as impatient as those around me to push through the cross current and get on my way. Minutes pass, thunder cracks overhead and my motorbike’s clutch plates overheat, give out, bike stops. Who cares, push it through, rolling with one foot on the tarmac. Just don’t get caught out here in the open. Rain here is no pleasant relief from the summer heat. It blinds you, hurting your skin as it pelts like small icy stones. No, not at all like hail - its 40 degrees cold. Ten seconds in it and you’re drenched. It murders your cell phone and bludgeons all the precious stamps in your passport. Plain sailing for a few more streets, but around Hoan Kiem Lake the winds howl, blowing leaves and dust in my eyes. I can’t see but I drive faster anyway; the thunder is more urgent now. Round the lake and the raindrops come, few now and just a few blocks to go. I know I’m not going to make it. Two more blocks and the clouds unfold – race to the nearest tree, shelter while I strap on my plastic poncho. It stinks to high hell inside it, push my head through, gulp air, tuck it under my ass, and I’d be rolling already, but there’s an opportunist right in front of me trying to hock one of those 10 cent shake and bake, cling film raincoats that shred to pieces when you put them on. Two more bocks and I’m there. I park my bike knowing full well of the floods to come. Whether the waters will rise above the exhaust pipe and bleed all through my engine, only time will tell. Inside, third floor, but there’s no holding out the water. The session is spent waving a quarter staff around while trying desperately not to slip over too near the other student who is wielding a large metal sword. It’s an open, covered studio, and skimpy curtains barely hold out the torrents. In five minutes I’m soaked. In ten minutes we have to shut down the fans; water on the cables and covering the floor, and us packing deadly weapons, this could get nasty really fast. Peeking from the windows occasionally we see the poor sods caught out in it, pushing their bikes through the knee deep waters in the intersection outside. Cars sit dormant in haphazard positions, lights out, dead. The rain may have stopped, but the waters won’t recede. I’ll be out there soon enough. Leaving the building and the ground floor is awash. Small waves move out as one ground floor dweller tries to sweep the water out with a broom, but bigger waves roll back as cars pass in the street outside, their wake firing straight down the alley, bringing in all manner of flotsam - sticks, plastic bags, a wooden ancestor worship shrine. My bike stands on the footpath, chain deep in water. I hope it starts. The parking attendant cum small bar operator for elderly piss heads gesticulates wildly from beneath his plastic slicker. “I know, I know. You don’t wanna be out here in the swash zone looking out for my bike. It’s okay, it probably won’t go anyway.” I give him his VND1000 and he vanishes inside. I’m trying to figure out what to do about my bike; will it go? Can I remember where the curb is under the water? There are five roads that run off this intersection – which way should I go? A teenage girl stands nearby, surveying the carnage. I ask her which direction I should go, and she stares at me with a “Go where?” look on her face. My bike starts and I ride off down the pavement, slowly, trying not to kick up too much wake. The old drunk who hangs around that corner is still wearing his fedora, still clutching a plastic water bottle full of rice wine. He waves it at me. “You want some?” I’m busy, I tell him, and he draws a line with his finger across the water: this way out. Around the corner, two blocks down, each intersection flooded with people trying to negotiate each other and keep their machines running. A tree lies across the road, an SUV trying to edge around the end, but there’s a power pole in the way. There’s a downed power line, I’ve gotta ride over it, freaky thoughts on the nature of water and electricity. Assume it’ll be ok. Drive on. I’m taking random turns, assuming that heading away from Hanoi’s multitude of lakes and towards the dike is a good bet. Eventually I come to an empty street. The next intersection flooded, looks deep. But I’ve forded rivers on this bike – keep the engine running and you can ride through anything. Keep the engine running, keep the… It’s a lot deeper than I thought. My bike putters to a stop and I can almost hear it sucking the water in through every leaky engine pore. I’m screwed and I know it. I got myself in this position: sitting astride my waterlogged bike in a darkened downtown intersection, a light drizzle falling, it’s oddly quiet. A truck roars into the intersection from my left, its wake rising like something at Mavericks. A girl riding into the intersection from the other direction hits it head on and is washed overboard. She and her bike disappear underwater. I stand on the seat of my bike and brace for the wave. It splashes on the tank, whipping up and wetting my rolled up shorts. I’m struck by how absurd all of this is, while resigning myself to pushing my bike out and figuring out how I’m going to fix it. As I push my bike through the intersection, the distraught girl tries to collect her floating belongings. I’m thinking about a day like this a few years back, one an afternoon rainstorm flooded bia hoi corner. Some painters, caught unawares by the rain, left their cans and brushes sitting on a door step. The waters rose, the rain stopped, and all looked like it would pass uneventfully, until the wake of a passing car knocked the cans over, putting a white slick across the water’s surface. When I happened on the scene a few minutes later, there was a line marking the waters lapping height, like the pink bath scum in Dr Seuss’ Cat in the Hat. Out of the water I push my bike up onto the access ramp to someone’s house, and kick it over until the water stops squirting out of the exhaust pipe. I spend the next hour, with more sweat than rain running off my face, trying to get the damned thing running again. Water water everywhere so let’s ruin four sparkplugs and bruise our feet kicking it over a thousand times in footwear that earlier seemed so sensible. On the ride home - hands black with grease, clothes wet, temper frayed – the air is cool, the higher dike streets almost dry already. People negotiate downed power lines and fallen trees like there’s nothing out of the ordinary going on. After all, it could very well happen again tomorrow afternoon. Source VNN