Quiet please
I’ve said on any number of occasions that if you were to ask me to describe Vietnam in one word it would be “loud.” I really don’t understand how an entire nation of people have become comfortable and unbothered by all this noise. A year and a half later and it still drives me nuts.
You remember that when I first moved into this apartment, construction began right next door. I was woken up around 6:00am every morning to banging and pounding right on the other side of the wall of my bedroom. And that was seven days a week for five months. FIVE.
I’ve mentioned on Facebook about the neighbor who had a rooster which took to crowing at 3:30 in the morning. I’ve never been so happy for someone to get rid of a pet. Although I still wish that the neighbors would get rid of some of their dogs. The reality about that, though, is that usually if an animal has been silenced, it also means it’s been eaten. Yes, the dogs too.
My friend Mette, who’s apartment looks over West Lake, has endured about two years of construction noise and had her west-facing windows completed blocked by a new building constructed next to her. That same building and another next to it have essentially blocked my view of the lake. Mette and I can no longer wave at each other!
There is construction happening all over my neighborhood as older buildings get torn down or villas get renovated so that foreigners will come in and rent these places and the owners can make oodles of cash. My rent is $1000 a month plus utilities and quite frankly, for Vietnam, I think this is bullshit. My apartment is nice and I’m lucky it’s well constructed, also lucky I have nice owners, but still, $1000 for a 1.5 bedroom apartment is nonsense. Add the fact that I’ve never had so many problems sleeping and I think I should be paid to live here. Jeez!
Now the villa across the way is being renovated and from 6:00 in the morning until late at night, there is noise. Big, loud, obnoxious, makes-you-want-to-scream, head-banging noise. It’s everything I can do not to yell “SHUT UP” from my windows!
Tags: construction, Hanoi