I love the rain in Asia

A swollen river in Osaka, rain scoring a patchwork of patterns, textures on the surface. I cycle past, my umbrella in one hand, the other balancing the handlebars. Rain spatters off one waterproofed arm and seeps through my jeans into my thighs. I wait for the lights to turn and look across the river at a line of worker ants crossing a bridge, sheltered from the downpour by steel and glass. I smile and lift my face to the sky, feel the wind and rain on my face. Rivers of water are running under my wheels. Cars splash noisily past, pedestrians are joining me now on the bridge, clutching umbrellas, hugging their jackets closer. The green man flashes, I wobble off down ramp and over road and pavement, rain pricking at my face.

Now I sit in the office, hear the water gurgle outside, my jeans cold and clammy on my skin. I sip hot tea, think of sheeting rain on a longtail boat, rolling waves, my backpack precarious on the bow as the angry sea tips us in all directions. I’m wearing a plastic bag over my torso, my arms are pushed through holes in the sides. I’m laughing hysterically as the sea and the sky drench us by turns. I savour the fresh rainwater as it cleanses my lips, my eyes, my face of salt. We’re nearing the bay now, I can see a boatman through a fringe of rain standing on the jetty, ready to moor us to land. We emerge bright-eyed and bedraggled off the boat, toppling to shore with our bags. Relief, a celebration, sitting dripping onto plastic seats, with curry and a beer.

In Cambodia, the roads are orange rivers. We step from the taxi ankle-deep into cruising water. Broken red bricks and concrete slabs line the roadsides. Plastic sheeting, metals rods, the detritus of builders serve as camber. We stumble in our sandals through this hazardous sea.

I think of Little India in Bangkok. Rain sheets off awnings, poles and cords become molten glass.. the noise is deafening. Rafts of water carry leaves, litter, dust and rocks down storm drains with a roar. Cockroaches are swarming out of the drains, scuttling in all directions to escape the rising waters. I look on in wonder.

In Vietnam, holed up in a hotel room, our eyes pressed to a distorted windowpane, we’re at sea as thunder booms around the bay.

Rain in the jungle. The boom of the storm, the relentless sound of water hitting the grass roof, the snapping of branches, heavy thuds as coconuts fall to earth. Gradually the roar subsides and a pitter-patter of rain falls gently from the forest canopy. The musty smell of dust, moulding leaves and insects is in my nostrils, liberated from the roof above my bed. Leaves float lazily down from the eaves onto my mosquito net. I open the shutters, peer at the forest outside, green, vibrant, quenched. Leaves are nodding, bowing and springing with fat rolling drops of rain from the branches above.

At a festival in Kyushu, we’re stumbling drunk in the dark. Sleeping bags are wrapped around our necks like stoles, with only one torch to light our way through a mire of mud, mixed to a slippery paste by the last day’s constant rainstorm and the cars who’ve passed this way. Rain is pouring, we’re in purgatory, ankle-deep in black mud, holding onto car fenders and each other for balance - one of us squeals and falls back first into the mire. The umbrella is up-ended, we lose a sleeping bag as we scramble to pull him up.. doubled-up in laughter as he writhes like a startled beetle. We slide on, now heedless to the water and squelching mud beneath – shelter, shelter from the relentless rain and sucking mud!