The following text is taken from an account of the writer's experience of extreme weather in Vietnam, in South East Asia. Mornings in Vietnam in the rainy season: I must remember to push the mattress up on its side when I get up, before doing anything else. If not, it becomes heavier and heavier with moisture, the pungent stink of mildew¹ pinching my nose at night. In the rainy season, everything I do is a strategy for coping with the damp chill and the water. I didn't grow up here. The water infiltrates my consciousness. I learn to accept it, like the others around me, to see it as a minor disruption. In the rainy season, I must remember to keep my showers to a few minutes, no matter how good it feels to have the water pounding my back, soothing away the chill. The water slowly seeps through the cement between the shower stall and bedroom, impregnates the wall, a sheen of tiny droplets over my bed. Another thing to remember: never leave the pillows propped up against the wall. In the rainy season, I mustn't boil water for tea or cook anything that produces too much steam, adding to the weight of moisture hanging in the air. The excess humidity settles: a visible mist upon the clothes hanging in my closet, turning them into a new life form, furry and spotted. Every surface a wick for moisture. In the rainy season, I am thankful that my home is in this neighbourhood, this alley, so much higher than the main road. While the rich sleep in their attics, or on their roofs, the swirling, muddy water laps at my door sill, but doesn't enter. I grab my umbrella and head out for breakfast. I push open the waterlogged left panel of my carved wooden door. My umbrella mushrooms out with a snap and a dull whomp, displacing water-filled air. Rain sheets down from our red tiled roof. My nephew, radiant in his purple rain poncho, a canary yellow motorcycle helmet pushed down over the hood, stands under the eaves, rain rat-a-tat-tatting down from the roof onto the helmet. A duet with the drumming rain on my umbrella. Pausing a moment in the ankle-deep water, we listen to the call-and-response rhythm we make together. He laughs a great belly-laugh and roars off on his motorbike, the water a tall rooster-tail behind him. Looking at the world from under my rose-coloured umbrella, I wade down the alley with its gold walls, under grey skies and green leaves. The lane falls to meet the road. The water rises to my knees, threatens my jeans, rolled up thigh-high. Each step an eternity, pushing against the flow, my toes seeking the edge of the sidewalk. Stepping out into the main road triggers a memory from the year before: this corner is where the pavement dips into a pothole, where I twisted an ankle under the murky water. I can't see my feet, or even my knees. The Perfume River, not knowing its boundaries, or refusing to have any, overflows the banks, invades the road and climbs the steps of shops and homes. In the rainy season, instead of my usual coffee and soup on the bank of the river, I head for the very back of a restaurant I never set foot in during good weather. The tables near the front are prone to the fine mist that kicks up from the water- skimmed entrance, pummelled by the onslaught of rain. I'm lucky to find an empty seat. Waiting for breakfast, I watch the river swelling over the road, up the three steps and into the crowded restaurant. Inhaling the aroma of bitter coffee, I watch boys swimming and casting their fishing lines, shouting and laughing in the river that used to be the road. A group of teens cycles past, four abreast, wearing purple and pink ponchos. Laughing, pushing at the pedals, they move in slow motion, tires submerged. One of them struggles but cannot avoid a branch drifting into his path. Across from the restaurant, several tourists raise their cameras to snap souvenirs of a small girl hugging her wiry dog on the roof of her home. Down the road the water is higher; another dog stands on the hood of a taxi, barking at the water as it rises, lapping over the hood. Awaiting my food, I peer through the breakfast bustle to watch the tourists point their cameras at the rising river and the falling rain. They laugh and curse and squeal as the water soaks their pant legs, rolled up to their crotches, giving them a bowlegged gait² as they enter the restaurant in squelching shoes. After breakfast, I venture out of the shelter of the restaurant and back into the flood, the chill soaking into my bones. Bits of flotsam—a plastic water bottle, a piece of someone's front door—bob against me as I struggle against the current until I reach my alley. I wonder if this is the year the water will rise up my walls. ¹mildew: damp mould ²gait: way of walking