I went through the darkest moments of my stay in Hanoi in the past 3 days. Literally.
Power shortage has been a serious problem plaguing Vietnam. Due the the limited supply and overwhelming demand, especially in summer, the government had to come up with a series of intiatives to overcome this issue. One tried and tested method was to rotate the supply of electricity amongst various areas. And the area where my house was located happened to be the "chosen" one for the last 3 days.
Typically, the government will send a letter of notification to all households in that area before cutting off the power supply for the entire day. By night, the power supply normally resumes. However, we were quite unfortunate as this round, there was no prior notice given. What made it worse was the supply was cut for most periods in the day and night. On the first night, we were left "powerless". With no aircon, no fan and no wind, it was really a mission impossible to fall asleep. We opened all the windows and kicked away our blankets. But with the summer heat lingering, we got all sweaty and uncomfortable. The amazing thing was I still managed to fall asleep! I don't know how I did that.. but by 11pm.. I was dozing off in bed. M didn't sleep well until the power supply came back at 4am in the morning.
On the second day, this pattern repeated itself. Desperate for a good bath (the water tank in my house runs on power so when there is no electricity, I can only get a trickling shower), I headed over to Sheraton Hotel to use the gym and shower facilities there. At night, we experienced a blackout again. :( Luckily, M's friend, A, was really nice and offered to let us stay in his apartment (quite near to where we live) for a night.
By the third day, our patience had run dry and we demanded for a back-up generator from our housing agent. It did arrive in the afternoon but I could tell that it was fairly old and worn out. Well well.. can't really complain here as this is how things work here. After some massive installation effort, it was finally in working condition in the evening.
So far, things have been working so I am quite thankful for it. Really hate to go through another hot, humid and sleepless night. At least there's some consolation now as there is this old and noisy back-up generator in my backyard. But hopefully, I won't need to use it. Keeping my fingers crossed...
Power shortage has been a serious problem plaguing Vietnam. Due the the limited supply and overwhelming demand, especially in summer, the government had to come up with a series of intiatives to overcome this issue. One tried and tested method was to rotate the supply of electricity amongst various areas. And the area where my house was located happened to be the "chosen" one for the last 3 days.
Typically, the government will send a letter of notification to all households in that area before cutting off the power supply for the entire day. By night, the power supply normally resumes. However, we were quite unfortunate as this round, there was no prior notice given. What made it worse was the supply was cut for most periods in the day and night. On the first night, we were left "powerless". With no aircon, no fan and no wind, it was really a mission impossible to fall asleep. We opened all the windows and kicked away our blankets. But with the summer heat lingering, we got all sweaty and uncomfortable. The amazing thing was I still managed to fall asleep! I don't know how I did that.. but by 11pm.. I was dozing off in bed. M didn't sleep well until the power supply came back at 4am in the morning.
On the second day, this pattern repeated itself. Desperate for a good bath (the water tank in my house runs on power so when there is no electricity, I can only get a trickling shower), I headed over to Sheraton Hotel to use the gym and shower facilities there. At night, we experienced a blackout again. :( Luckily, M's friend, A, was really nice and offered to let us stay in his apartment (quite near to where we live) for a night.
By the third day, our patience had run dry and we demanded for a back-up generator from our housing agent. It did arrive in the afternoon but I could tell that it was fairly old and worn out. Well well.. can't really complain here as this is how things work here. After some massive installation effort, it was finally in working condition in the evening.
So far, things have been working so I am quite thankful for it. Really hate to go through another hot, humid and sleepless night. At least there's some consolation now as there is this old and noisy back-up generator in my backyard. But hopefully, I won't need to use it. Keeping my fingers crossed...
3 comments:
ha ha ha... what a hilarious post. this reminds me of the 1970's when blackout was rather "popular" then. we had fun as we had to light up the candles.
it's like back to basics again, ya?
i do hope that you will enjoy the comfort of the fan soon.
cheers
And I was wondering when I saw yr FB update why on earth wd you sleep w/o air-con...but glad you're coming home soon ;)
yes yes.. thanks a lot.. the power supply has been back.. thank goodness..
now i learn to appreciate the basic things of consistent electricity supply in Spore. :p
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