This boy stood here contemplating the torrential afternoon rain shower in Ho Chi Minh City for many minutes.
I hope this cute little boy does not break out in a rash. (Note: He several times lay down in the puddle after splashing around; he didn't fall, like one viewer thought!)Why is it still raining? The hot, dry season should have started already, complains Lena, who is from here. She worries that climate change is messing with the monsoons. But I'm wondering if the downpours we've been having for the past week are not too abnormal because we're still in transition?
Vietnam’s winter monsoon– the dry season -- starts roughly mid-November and blows around until the end of March. The arid winds start off cold, born from icy high-pressure zones above eastern Asia before arcing over Siberia and China. They carry a chill with them to northern Vietnam, according to the book “Vietnam: A Natural History.” (No chill for the weary in the south, however! Except from my delicious iced espresso with a splash of condensed milk in the morning. Pic of the woman who makes it for me to come. She runs a little coffee bar out of her home two doors down in the alley where I'm living.)
The summer monsoon gets going from June through September, with moist winds streaming up from the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Thailand southwest of here toward China’s mid-section. Along the way, they dump heavy daily rains onto Vietnam. Summer is typhoon time, as well.
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