SOUNDS

We've talked before about the smells that I have come to associate with Vietnam. Today, we are discussing the SOUNDS.

When we are home, we leave our windows and doors wide open. It keeps it cooler, and there is no danger as we are on the 10th floor of an apartment in a gated complex with up to 10 security guards at a time. Granted, I've woken them up before, but overall I feel safer with them here. Plus they're just really nice.

As I am sitting in our apartment right now, the first sound I hear is banging metal, maybe straightening rebar, or hammering. A rooster is crowing. Some other type of equipment is being used, maybe a saw, The elevator dings to announce the arrival of someone on some floor

Usually, I can hear the dripping of water from someone watering plants (some people have a balcony that I covet). The most prominant sound is usually motorbikes. Either one puttering down the road with a sound that makes me think of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (bubbles? I don't know), or one revved up and speeding.

Outside our apartment, in the mornings, I can only determine that this is a car- horn testing facility. I'm not joking. There is no other explanation for the regularity and the cadence of the honking. The honking from the street is different. Here, I can look down and see someone sitting in a van, honking the horn. Repeatedly. Daily. If there is another explanation, please enlighten me.

Now, we mustn't overlook the honking on the street. but to be honest, I barely notice it anymore. When we are walking on the street, we are only alarmed by the huge trucks, whose horns are deafening, and also often play some sort of tune (a few notes up and down; Erica just described it as a "little diddy"), rather than the traditional, "beep," or "honk."

One of my favorite noises is a woman yelling. She's carrying a pole over her shoulder with baskets full of something that she's selling. She yells out what she's selling in such a sing-songy way, that it doesn't sound like a voice, but an instrument, like two keys on the piano. There is also a man who rides around on a bike with a loud speaker yelling in his robotic Vietnamese. He is apparently announcing the things that he wants to buy from people. And he repeats it, word for word, the same, over and over. It's not a recording! We checked.

And of course, there is another man who rides around on a cart. We dont't know what he wants, or where he is, but we can hear him from far away out of his speaker. It sounds like, "tank top!" "tank top!" over and over. We affectionately call him "tank top man."

There really are too many sounds to name. Sometimes there is music coming from the pagoda nearest our house, and sometimes our upstairs neighbors are doing home repairs..? Our elderly neighbors sometimes blast pop music and burn incense and leave their doors open. One of my favorites is being bale to hear someone singing karaoke. I'm starting to really like living in the city. It's the roosters crowing that get on my nerves..