In Mazatlán, Sinaloa, the tuba and drum banda soundsystems are on speakers and live (roving on the back of pickup trucks), so you can't escape it. That one's a loud neighborhood too.

It's the early morning noises that get to me the most. Or they used to anyway. (I'm better now.)I don't mind the monks chanting, but the jokes and canned laughter are hard to ignore.


Old story : Years ago, we were renting a flat above the owners place and they informed us that they would be holding a funeral ceremony for ancestors (100-day ceremony) at their place downstairs. This was a very long time ago, and I was such a greenie. Haha. (Laugh now!)

For some reason, I was also feeling sick at the time, maybe just hungover. But, anyway, we were invited to a funeral party, and a big truck full of tables, chairs, tents, and a street kitchen with cookers, pots and pans etc, turned up out of nowhere, and about 15 people set up a camp-kitchen on the road outside the house (as they do).

The funeral loudspeaker had been hoisted on a pole up to the level of our balcony, AND was pointing directly at us (at a close range of about 3-4 metres), so we were getting the vibe and enjoying the funeral party before it had even started. Then the people started to arrive from all over, the whole street was blocked , so it was a BLOCK PARTY.
And holy fk, it lasted for 3 days !!! Every morning I thought it would end, but NO.

Still good friends with that family, but we should have moved out for those 3 days.
We were invited to the party and peoople kept bringing us food.

I love you Cambodia, but that was whacko (and LOUD).

I live in a small town in Belgium, and this weekend we have a heavy-metal festival in our back-garden. They started thursday with Guns n Roses, which are the softies from the festival, from yesterday-afternoon until sunday-night its all metal bands, only way to sit it out, get hopeless pissed, that way you have no idea why you have headage on monday.
151 bands this year, wherefrom 100+ i never heard about !!
You can check it on GMM.BE or GRASPOP.BE . . .
Khmer funerals are very silent !!!

weddings, funerals, screaming kids, old ladies shouting at 4am, itinerant vendors with boom boxes, barking dogs 24/7.

10 hours of white noise:

Foam earplugs, less than $5 for 12

I think people are scared of silence