I'm This Far Out of the Boat

My Sunday drive is a motorbike journey through the mountains and hills of the Vietnam countryside.  It's not what you may be thinking.  I don't live in the jungle.  It's the dry season in Da Lat, and often I get the feeling I'm in old Mexico or somewhere else, because I can't believe that I'm here.  I cruise through the little towns and back roads, past the everyday Vietnamese fellaheen, past the ethnic minorities and their children, past the man sipping coffee in a shady cafe along the side of the road.  I relax, lean back and cruise along dusty roads out of the city and away from the busyness of modern urban life.  The wind smells of flowers from the numerous farms and greenhouses that blot the hills like so many dots from a Seurat painting.  There are children walking home for lunch carrying their schoolbooks in little knapsacks.  All the while the sun beats down on this December morn reminding me of Spring somewhere else.  I picture it all from the back of a horse in some spaghetti western, except no gun fights, no nothing.

sipping coffee at a roadside cafe

old church across the road from a much newer and more impressive church

minority town and horses

local soccer pitch

family walking away