The "cold" season was supposed to be over weeks ago but in the past few weeks we have seen very little sun and it has actually been quite comfortably cool at night.
A lot of people are complaining about this but for me, the spring, summer, and most of what you might call autumn is just so hot for me that I spend most of my life quite uncomfortable. Therefore, I am welcoming this streak of cool weather that is happened weeks after it was supposed to be over.
You can't really tell from this picture, but there are a ton of people here in town right now. From people I know that are just visiting, the hotels in the "good" part of town are fully-booked and it is difficult to find any sort of sort-of-long-term rentals. Basically, they want you to rent for 3 months or just a few days. I know quite a few people that have to change rooms or even addresses once every few days because everything is fully booked.
I rarely go out at night but last night some friends were visiting from out of town and they wanted to go so I showed them the "nightlife" street and it was absolutely packed. This is not really my scene but it was fun from my friends.
Here is an important thing about this sort of unseasonably cool weather we have been having: I am able to get out in these places without sweating because of it. This is a very real problem for me because I feel a bit embarrassed about how much I will sweat even if I am not moving because of the heat and humidity. The sweating makes me more nervous about my appearance and this makes me sweat even more. It's quite a problem for me so I was very happy that the weather has been quite cool lately, even if that means that we are not getting very much sunshine.
The city does a good job of convincing the visitors that the beach and the ocean are clean, but you need only go about a km south of where most of the hotels are in order to see what the beach would look like if it wasn't maintained. It's really dirty ya'll and this is kind of a scary reminder to those of us that live here about how much garbage is actually in that ocean that people are swimming in.
I am trying to keep my "voice" positive here because I complain too much but I noticed something yesterday that is actually very common here, unfortunately.
This is an area between two businesses in the tourism area that I live close to. This construction debris has been here for a long time and it doesn't look like they have any intention of carrying it away because the builds have been finished for quite some time. This is a really terrible blemish on the neighborhood and honestly, is really bad for tourism. I don't know how they get away with it but I think it would be beneficial to everyone if there was some sort of intervention where the police would find whoever did this, and make them carry it off. Unfortunately it seems like this country has a very ingrained culture of "not my land, not my problem" in relation to disposal of almost anything.
I just kind of wonder about the person whose land it actually is. If it was my land I would have a huge problem with someone just coming by and dumping tons of stone, brick, and especially those cement pipes that probably couldn't be lifted by the two strongest men in the world.
I believe that Da Nang is a great place... but it could be so much better if the people just cared a little bit more than they do.
