The Storm

This is a post that I began several months ago soon after October 28th, 2012 when a large tropical storm made its way through the Philippines, up the coast of Vietnam and eventually dissipated after making its way through southern China. Somehow this particular blog post got lost and left uncompleted for a while as I taught, travelled and eventually came back home... regardless of its late submission I hope you all enjoy the final product!

As the Reunification Express slowly chugged its way down the tracks away from the hustle and bustle of Hanoi City this particular late Sunday afternoon, the raindrops gliding lazily down the windowpanes in rapid succession denied me the usually stunning view of the Vietnamese countryside in the late afternoon; the sky was not painted in brushstrokes of subtle pinks and purples; the water from rice fields did not shimmer with the reflection of the setting sun; instead an ominous and monotonous shade of grey was splashed angrily across the sky. The weather whilst dreary was not unexpected given the tropical locale and relative closeness to the latter end of monsoon season and therefore, while sad to not once again witness mountain silhouettes melting into the distance at dusk, I gave little heed to the developing storm and settled in for the journey home. As the train meandered its way along the tracks I gave little notice to the passage of time and even dozed off at times.

At 5.30pm the train was pulling into the station where I was due to cease my journey, or so I thought. The timing was about right but this did not seem to fit somehow? I strained to see a station name through the speckled windows but the sun had now completely departed leaving in its wake a thick sea of blackness and thus my eyes failed me. For a moment I panicked thinking perhaps I had dozed too long and missed my stop and was headed ever southward and wondered if so, where I should depart in order to ensure I was not in Saigon come morning. I motioned to the train staff at the end of carriage and eventually caught their attention. As they headed towards me I wondered how I would convey my question given my distinct lack of proficiency in speaking Vietnamese and the only slightly better capabilities of the train staff to communicate in English. When they arrived beside me I pulled out my ticket and pointed to the listed destination of ‘Nam Dinh’ and tried hard to look confused as I asked if we had passed the station yet? My attempts were to no avail however, the language barrier having thwarted my intentions once again, and so I resorted to a game of Charades, calmly but enthusiastically pointing, shrugging and acting out my dilemma (much to the amusement of other passengers), until eventually my enquiry was understood and I was informed that we had not yet reached Nam Dinh station. At this point I noticed that the trains speed had slowed significantly and was travelling at little more than a crawl. After half an hour we were yet to reach Nam Dinh and I was beginning to wonder if I had misinterpreted the staff’s assurances when a crew member came and tapped me on the shoulder and motioned to the doorway at the end of the carriage. I grabbed my bag, said goodbye to the lovely New Zealand lady sitting across from me who I had befriended during my journey and who was teaching a few towns down the track, and made my way to the doors.

As I arrived at the doorway I received the usual questioning glances and ‘Nam Dinh’? enquiries from people nearby who always seem perplexed as to why a young Australian girl is disembarking at a station so far from the tourist trail. As I departed the train I realised that the confines of the carriage had diffused how ferocious the rain and wind had become outside. I threw open my umbrella and jumped onto the platform, but my umbrella reversed itself completely and soon after the frame snapped rendering it completely useless. Within seconds I was completely drenched and I scrambled across the train tracks (platform crossings are non-existent here) and made my way to the relative safety and dryness of the waiting room.  As I stopped I realised I was shivering, the temperature had dropped significantly since I left Hanoi and I was wearing only a t-shirt and knee length cotton pants, which were both sopping wet by now. Out the front of the station passengers quickly scampered out to meet waiting friends and family and hurry home. As I looked around I noticed that all the usual fixtures of this area of the city were conspicuously absent; sales vendors had long departed, the usual eager swarm of taxis and xe om drivers were nowhere to be seen, and an ominous black shrouded the surroundings in the absence of street lights.  After a moment or two it dawned on me that without the usual proliferation of transport offers that usually greet me as I exit the station I was left without a mode of transportation home. I pulled out my phone to call a taxi and then realised the receptionists speak only in Vietnamese and even knowing my location, my pronunciation is so hopeless as to render any effort to request a ride completely useless.

I glanced around in hope of finding someone… anyone, who could help me and eventually spotted a small group of people standing under a large tarpaulin across the street. I scampered across the nearly completely and somewhat eerily abandoned road and motioned to my phone in an attempt to convey my need to call a taxi but my efforts drew no response and even my usual game of Charades failed me, perhaps due to my now pitch black surroundings. I made my way through my contact list in the hope that I could find someone who could call a taxi on my behalf. My first few attempts failed and my frustration was growing rapidly. The rain was getting heavier and the tarpaulin was collapsing so I scampered back across the road for the more sturdy cover of the station veranda and continued dialling numbers until Ms Phuong (the head English teacher at LHP) finally picked up, much to my relief. The rain was now coming so loudly that I could hardly hear her but eventually I conveyed my problem and was informed that her husband would come and pick me up in their car… not the assistance I was aiming for but at this stage I was certainly not going to refuse the offer!  After another 20 minutes standing on the balcony Mr and Ms Phuong finally arrived and I gratefully climbed into the car and we headed back to the school.

As I arrived at the school gate I expressed my extreme gratitude once again and rushed past the guard house and onto the covered veranda outside the classrooms which was flooded and perilously slippery, but nevertheless provided welcome relief from the torrential downpour. Eventually I made it to my front door and fumbled around for the lock and made my way into my pitch black room. I texted Linda, who lived upstairs to inform her I was home and she came downstairs and filled me in on the events of the past hour or so; The power had been gone throughout the city for about two hours so far and she informed me, this was not just a typical tropical storm but rather the beginnings of a Typhoon (Typhoon Son-Linh (estimated category 3) which as I would later discover made landfall on the coast of Vietnam about 45km southeast of Nam Dinh City). 

Once I had been brought up to date I scrambled around for my torch which was conspicuously absent and after borrowing Linda’s to help find my own I raced outside and back upstairs to give Linda her torch back and was literally knocked over by a stray gust of wind in the process. I scampered back to my room, shuttered the doors and windows as best I could and settled in to my black surroundings.  It was then that it occurred to me I had not eaten dinner yet.  With no power and stern instructions from Mrs Phuong not to venture out tonight for any reason I considered my choices and soon came to the resigned realisation that cereal was really my only option.

The rest of the evening passed in a state of frazzled nerves and heightened senses as the cacophony of tempestuous noises were amplified by the open tropical design of the school buildings, and scattered impressions of the world coming apart around me.  Soon after I settled in I got a text from mum concerned that I hadn’t Skyped her  as promised. At this point a text in return seemed hardly enough to explain the situation and so I quickly replied with ‘you might want to call me… it’s a long story’. In retrospect I probably should have replied with a simple ‘home safe, talk tomorrow’, but alas I didn’t and instead had a rather rushed conversation with Mum informing her that her daughter was alone, in a foreign country, battening up the hatches and awaiting the full intensity of a tropical storm. In among all of this explaining and reassuring that I was perfectly fine I may have had a slight freak out about it all, which probably did very little to calm her nerves. Once I finished the frazzled phone call it finally hit me that I was alone; in a foreign country; awaiting the full intensity of a tropical typhoon!  Surrounded by blackness and with little else to do I dug out my book and my torch and read for a while. I tried to ignore the constant banging and crashing of wooden desks falling onto tiled floors, the tearing sound as the school billboard featuring the beloved Uncle Ho was ripped clean off the frame and the shattering as the very large pot plant outside my door fell to the floor crushing the tiles beneath it. Eventually though exhaustion hit and I was able to drift off into a restless sleep, comforted (however slightly) by a niggling voice in the back of my mind reminding me that this would be a great story to tell… one day!

Morning brought a quiet and almost surreal peacefulness. As I woke at five and wandered outside I realised the quiet betrayed the trail of destruction left in Son-Linh’s wake. The day that followed was an eye opening testament to the resilience and unshakeable determination of the Vietnamese people as everyone went about their day as though nothing significant had happened. At 6.30am students began to arrive at school and class went on as usual despite the fact that power was yet to be restored. That afternoon as I travelled around the city the usual dishevelled state of Vietnamese infrastructure was intensified by downed power lines, destroyed and randomly deposited signs, missing walls of buildings and a general scene of destruction.  But perhaps the most startling observation on this “day after” was the way in which life continued on around the chaos. Motorist manoeuvred their bikes around the fallen trees, children ran around playing, seemingly oblivious to the events of the night before, residents set up their street stalls and restaurants (even one with a wall missing) opened as though it were just another day. Such a reaction to a natural disaster was completely foreign to my western upbringing in which an incident such as this would have shut down the town for days and seen the SES and army of volunteers (or even the actual army) called in to clean up the mess. But that is just the way it works in Vietnam. When something goes awry you simply pick yourself up and keep on going; it really is one of the most endearing traits of the nation and its people. Over the course of the next week things slowly returned to normal, the streets were cleared and signs returned to their regular upright position. The power across the city was restored after about five days, although the schools and hospitals got power back much sooner. Looking back and writing about the experience it seems very intense, but chances are my prose deceives reality and it was probably actually slightly less chaotic than I make it seem. But nevertheless that niggling voice as I drifted into an uneasy state of rest was right… it certainly does make for a good story to tell!