It's summer now here and it is my least favorite time of year in Da Nang. For the next 2 months or so the great outdoors become the great out-nopes for me because doing almost anything results in me becoming a sweaty mess, even if it just to go on a short walk with my dog to make peepeepoopoo's.
We are currently dealing with temperatures approaching 40 degrees Celsius every day now and for the Americans out there, this is over 100 degrees. You've probably heard the expression about something being a "dry heat" and how that doesn't feel so bad. Well I have no idea if that is true because I have never been to one of those "dry heat" places and since I can see the ocean from my balcony in my condo, we of course are not a dry heat area. The humidity is the real killer here and it is 50% or above almost every day.
There is no respite. You either completely avoid going outdoors and just sit on your air conditioned house all day, or you go outside and sweat like mad. I walk Nadi (my dog) at least twice a day and we don't even go very far... perhaps 1 km or less. By the time we get back I look like I have been swimming and her tongue is hanging out of her mouth, which is something that she prefers not to do as she is more of a lazing around on the sofa kind of gal.
It's kind of cute when we get back because she will immediately go prone on whatever cool surface she can find and on particularly hot day, this will include not being able to wait and goes "sploot" on the floor in the lobby in the middle of the coffee shop that is there while we wait for the elevator.
The other night I realized that I was out of milk and cereal and needed to have these items for my breakfast before bowling on Thursday. I figured I would combine this with taking Nadi for a walk and this turned out to be a terrible mistake.
This city is very open about allowing your dog to go with you almost anywhere you want, but many of the better minimarts demand that you carry your dog while you are in the shop. This rule wasn't created by good doggies like Nadi but rather the people that have dogs that go ape shit when they get into anything. Nadi would just calmly follow me around the store because she is nearly 10 and well-behaved but other dogs just go mental. However, I am subjected to the same rules because of the ol' "it only takes a few bad apples to spoil the barrel" mentality.
So I had Nadi cradled under my arm and when I got to Full Market (the minimart) there was a mob of what appeared to be an entire village that was blocking all the aisles. This makes me nervous for starters, and when we were having trouble getting down the aisles, I started to sweat because I am the outlier here - I am the guy in a store with his dog. Then when I got to the front of the line people started trying to cut line. I got frustrated by this and this made me sweat even more. I had to shoo other people away and remind them of the queueing etiquette, but by this point I am dripping sweat on the floor and my shirt is near saturated. Nervous situations make me extra hot and I have always been hot natured my entire life.
So by the time I got out of there I have decided that Nadi will not be going on these trips with me anymore. It is just too nerve racking for me. It breaks her heart whenever I leave the house without her but I think that if she had not been with me I would have been fine in that environment despite the fact that I find the cutting in line to be quite unruly.
I'm near the door so of course she is thinking "so.... where WE going?"
These are tough months for me and Nadi because I sweat too much and get hot too easy. She has a fur coat on that she cannot take off so it is even worse for her. So tuck in Nadi, you are going to have a lot of air conditioned hallway games of fetch until around mid-August ahead of you!