Flood in Huế, Today. Vietnamese People Celebrating Life

avatar
(Edited)

This morning surprised me. Having gone down to get my free breakfast (at my amazing homestay), I looked out of the entrance door and found this: water had reached the homestay's gates.

DSC_6029.JPG

Flood!

The space beyond the tree is the An Cuu River. I remember, three weeks ago or so, it heavily rained in Hue and I noted that the river level was only 50cm lower than the street. I thought it was worth noting but, on November 25, 2024, water filled the street and was nearly knee-deep at some places. 200 meters away from the homestay, next to An Dinh Palace, it was deeper than the knees so eventually my underwear got soaked. 😃

DSC_5924.JPG

But before I start sharing things, let me shortly explain what's happening here so as not to mislead people: some parts of the embankments and some adjacent alleys got flooded but most Hue streets are free of water and life goes on normally.

DSC_5906.JPG

There were no storms, just an endless row of gloomy rainy days. It's not cold here, roughly +26 in the afternoon and +23 at night so the weather is comfortable to sometimes walk in the water.

DSC_5855.JPG

But the situation is alarming. Vietnamese news agencies reported that 291.000 schoolchildren were asked to stay home in Thua Thien-Hue Province "amid flood threat".

DSC_5898.JPG

Nothing critical happened in the neighborhood of my homestay but it's worrying since it's only one step away from flooding the ground floors of houses which would mean serious financial losses.

DSC_5871.JPG

You can think: "There is no downpour in the images, probably, the whole thing had ended". Alas, this is not correct. After I returned from the morning walk, it started heavily raining. A LOT.

DSC_5961.JPG

So, yeah, people celebrating life. You never know what will happen next so better to enjoy the present moment which the local people were doing on November 25, 2024.

DSC_5894.JPG

An unexpected day off for kids and some adults. A great opportunity to spend time with the family.

DSC_5930.JPG

Some guys even set up a fishing net along the street (no photo), to fence away the river and collect trapped fish.

DSC_5956.JPG

Here, it is well visible: the embankment and the river became a single whole.

DSC_5969.JPG

The current of the river is not strong and no current in the street so no one is carried away but the locals warned me a couple of times not to accidentally wander into the part of the street that is actually a river. 😄

DSC_5963.JPG

I returned to the homestay in the afternoon and fell asleep when it started heavily raining. I returned to the streets around 4 p.m. when it was drizzling again. Headed to An Dinh Palace.

DSC_6088.JPG

An Dinh Palace's central gate.

DSC_6092.JPG

The same place. My favorite part of Hue!

DSC_6076.JPG

The old gate. Venice of the East. 😀

DSC_6058.JPG

I couldn't help asking consent for taking images here and there and enjoyed the reaction of people. 😀

DSC_6055.JPG

The girl didn't want for some reason but I took an image of her and him on my way back - probably, the guy convinced her.

DSC_6068.JPG

Knee-deep, you see. There were deeper places on the street buy people preferred keeping their underwear dry.

These guys looked so cool so I couldn't pass by them without asking for a picture.

DSC_6096.JPG

My photo radar received a signal from these kids that they didn't mind posing for me.

And, here, I was asked to photograph:

DSC_6078.JPG

My amazing walk was interrupted by the fact that something fogged up inside my camera 😁 I hurried back to the homestay and discovered it was the back (inner!) glass of my 50mm lens, fogged up. Unmounted the lens and it got dry without my help. But it was a wake-up call - I need to be more careful with the camera during the rain.

Let's see what happens tomorrow! 😎 Thanks for stopping by!

More Southeast Asian adventures to come, stay tuned! Check out my previous posts on my personal Worldmappin map.

I took these images with a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G on a full-frame DSLR Nikon D750 on November 25, 2024, in Hue, Vietnam.



0
0
0.000
16 comments
avatar

Congratulations @x-rain! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain And have been rewarded with New badge(s)

You distributed more than 11000 upvotes.
Your next target is to reach 12000 upvotes.

You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP

0
0
0.000
avatar
(Edited)

Весело там у тебя 😀- в Тай не собираешься?

0
0
0.000
avatar

Thank you! Not sure. Probably, I'll go to Laos just to enjoy drier weather for a while. I also thought about Khon Khaen...

0
0
0.000
avatar

а что там интересного? расскажи - никогда не слышал

0
0
0.000
avatar

В Кхонкэне, наверное, самое интересное, что это крупный город в Исане. Вот и все. Я прежде бывал в Убон Ратчатхани, и был впечатлен, насколько ментальность отлична там по некоторым параметрам от банкгогской. Более открытые и общительные.

А во-вторых, туда мне ближе из Вьетнама (чем в Чиангмай, например) и в Кхонкхэне дешево жить. Пока я режиме "ищу где дешевле", увы.

А в-третьих, для меня сейчас любой город в Таиланде - это курорт, где я хорошенько отдохну от в чем-то непростого Вьетнама) Не говоря уже про тайфуд)

Но пока решаюсь. Может, все же поеду в приморский вьетнамский город со славой приличного приморского города, до которого обычно не доезжают. Куинён.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Humans amaze me at times. I love how vibrant and full of life these people appear, even in the midst of such a crisis. It truly reflects their resilience and zest for living. Kudos to you for capturing such stunning images ! 😍😍

0
0
0.000
avatar

Yup, Vietnamese are super resilient, they keep smiling no matter what's happening. Thank you!

0
0
0.000
avatar

Amazing, how they just accept it and get on with life, in the Uk everything grinds to a halt, and the whingeing starts. Just see you are visiting Laos? Big news here in the uk at the moment about alcohol being laced with methanol, a few gap year kids dead through drinking it.

0
0
0.000
avatar

they just accept it and get on with life

Yup. I do respect these people and like being among them. Love their attitude to life, their understanding of boundaries and their politeness; except lumpens but even they are okay, rough in shape, but okay. I don't idealize: there's a lot of bad stuff here, for example, today I saw an elderly female vendor on the bridge just go to the trash bins and sit down to pee (I hope it was to pee!) She took off her pants just as I was passing by and I saw her butt, 100% of her, mildly saying, unattractive butt. 🤮😁

visiting Laos?

Yes, I visit it from time to time. I didn't know, thanks for sharing, this is awful news, I checked Google. Vang Vieng is a place that serves death from time to time, alas. 🙁

0
0
0.000
avatar
avatar

😁

BBC.com is banned in Vietnam. But Opera built-in VPN helped. Thank you.

In Laos, they sell cheap vodka in shops for super low prices - can't remember the price but I remember the scale of my surprise since the price was, like, below a dollar for half a liter or so. I doubt there is a serious quality control there. The hostel owner could just sell this cheap vodka or use it for cocktails.

Methanol is well-known in ex-Soviet countries since it was a regular way to die for Soviet people (low-quality alcohol or consuming technical liquids). A famous Soviet Russian novel's plot (Moscow-Petushki by Venedikt Erofeev) is fully built on methanol poisoning. A guy drinks while traveling on the train from Moscow to a small town Petushki, and gets more and more delusional until finally he loses his eye sight (because of methanol poisoning) and dies on the train never reaching Petushki.

0
0
0.000
avatar

wow bbc banned ! didn't know that, I guess backpackers are easy prey if they are not street wise and as for that book, it sounds wonderful...not

0
0
0.000
avatar

What an unexpected morning adventure! I hope you’re staying safe amidst the floods—it seems like quite the memorable experience. 🌧️😊. Unfortunately, in our country as well, some areas are facing severe rainfall, leaving many people affected by natural disasters.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Hey! Yeah, it was quite a memorable and, at the same time, easy adventure: water has left streets and the monsoon season is behind so hopefully no comebacks; we didn't experience a shortage of supply in shops or a failure of infrastructure. So... Lucky we are. 😊 Thank you! 😀

0
0
0.000