A few months ago, I wasn’t so happy with was going on weather-wise in Saigon, but now with the rainy season set in, I have nothing to complain about. Something I read the other day calculated that it rains 2 out of 3 days during this season in southern Vietnam, and that does sound about right to me. Though that would be more of an average, because sometimes you can have a week without it or 10 days of showers every day.
Most often, the clouds build in the mid afternoon and it rains at about 4, or the sky may tease for longer and it won’t rain until the evening. It’s amazing how fast the clouds can build, the sky darken and threaten, but then it’s all over without a drop of rain. Though it might not rain where you are, if you’re lucky to have a big sky vantage point you’ll see that another district is getting dumped on. I do love the rain that is a thorough dumping, bouncing off all surfaces and making everything glimmer.
When it’s not raining the cloud cover drops the temperature a few degrees, so I also find it to be good bike riding weather, which has become a regular weekend activity these days; sometimes heading out to a certain destination or others just in a general direction with an unexplored district in mind. But then intriguing alleys may lead to detours and you never know where you might end up or what you might see along the way. It’s a good way of finding new local restaurants, tucked away pagodas, crumbling colonial buildings that are surely not long for this world, markets and shopping streets specialising in a certain obscure product.
Of course the traffic can be a little overwhelming, but also negotiating your way through it can be strangely meditative, if you’re in the right mood. It can also be irritating, which is why I’m only heading out on the weekends. I think that if I was riding during weekday peak hour and putting up with Saigon traffic shenanigans every day, this activity would lose its appeal.
My vehicle of choice is the trusty and ever popular Martin 107 bicycle. Ridden by all types in Vietnam, from monks, to construction workers, to school children, the young and old. The standard product comes with a basket and gears are unheard of, which is fine. Saigon, on the edge of the Mekong delta flood plane, is hill-less and rarely very windy.
Actually, I’d never thought that much about the lack of wind here, but when I read someone else mentioning this, I thought about all my leisurely bike riding and realised that it was true. What I was reading was an article about the construction of the near complete 68 floor Bitexco Financial Tower. You cannot miss this new construction in Saigon, as it’s about double the height of the previous tallest building. It soars hundreds of metres beyond anything else, very impressive but also sticking out like a big, somewhat lonely, sore thumb at the moment. In the article the architect was addressing concerns over the safety of it’s unusual jutting out helipad, positioned adjacent rather than on top of the building, and he cited Saigon’s lack of wind as a reason to have no fear that any helicopter was going to go veering off and chopping its way through the building.
The other reason I like bike riding in Saigon is because I can meander and explore without getting lost. Sure, I might not know exactly where I am for a while, but if I keep riding I’ll come across one of the main roads after not too long. And if that doesn’t work, all I need to do is locate the Bitexco tower and head in its general direction to find my way home.
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