ATM

I'm in Nha Trang, and it's stinking hot. But just outside the hotel I'm in is an ATM, and in typical Viet style it's in a little stand-alone booth, and this particular ATM booth is fiercely airconditioned. My ATM card has stopped working (half the magnetic strip on the back has abraded off - overuse?) but I still can't resist ducking into the ATM booth once in a while to cool off.

Some hot countries have a fetish for a/c, and it's to do with showing off how developed they are. I remember in Singapore, offices and - especially- movie theaters were very aggressively airconditioned, so much so that going to the movies usually meant taking a coat or a sweater. And I think part of that is also to do with being able to show of the nice winter clothes that people bought in New York and London, and which they'd never otherwise get a chance to wear. And once in a while there'd be a night where it low 20s outside, so you could drive around with your car windows down. Or at least expats did.. the locals all had their windows up and the a/c on. Someone explained this to me as being the locals being unwilling to look as though they didn't have airconditioning in their cars.