… Err, right now I’m thinking – stay in bed and recover from being kept awake all night by the neighbourhood’s World Record attempt on the ‘Loudest and Longest Funeral Wake’. Two days, tone deaf karaoke, pub gigs and opera of the Asian cat-strangling variety (definitely no Puccini here), topped off with the inevitable jazz procession through the streets at 6am. This time I did drag myself out onto the balcony to see it. Saffron-robed priests, a coffin draped in red carried by pall bearers dressed in white complete with peaked caps, and assorted followers bringing up the rear, dodging the potholes and motorbikes already buzzing round the alleyways.
This comes hot on the heels of the local school’s open-air assembly at 7am on Friday morning, which also seemed to last several hours and involve the headmaster whipping the kids into a frenzy over the tannoy.
The Vietnamese construction industry, similarly, doesn't seem to have any conception of time, and with half the city a building site the sound of hammering, drilling and sawing is pretty much constant.
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