Building a Building

They have been working on this night and day outside of where I live.  They are, I believe, building a new dormitory for students.  I'm not sure when it will be done, but it seems to be going rather fast.  We have an empty building next to me that no one has ever used.  The way construction projects work here is that some of the workers first construct a shanty like building and live on site while the work is underway.  Then they begin digging and pouring concrete.  Most days I just walk by and like to watch them work.  Occasionally the construction reminds of the scenes in Raiders of the Lost Ark where they are digging for the ark of the covenant in Egypt, especially when they are digging at night.  I'm not sure why.  Mostly the construction amounts to a lot of unusual noises during day that I can faintly hear from my room.

Lawnmower

 Occasionally there are horses just wandering around the campus at Dalat.  They kind of just meander around not really paying attention to anything, until a student or two tries to touch them.  I hate to admit it, but I always imagine an annoyed horse punting one of them across campus like a football.  Normally they are tied to a post and moved about the campus.  They're our lawnmowers, they keep everything trim.

Dam, Buffalo, Electric Plant

Most tourists never get to see the little hidden gems nestled into the mountains surrounding Dalat.  They miss out on much of the beauty of Dalat, because they never dare to a rent a motorbike and just take off in any direction.  I've spent the last few months exploring the back roads that line the mountains here.  I've rode through minority villages, explored dirt paths that lead to nowhere, examined old French remnants of colonialism, seen remote waterfalls, and circled amazing lakes and reservoirs.  One such ride was last weekend.  We started off for an area called Golden Valley where they have a flower garden.  We bypassed the flowers and rode further on up the road.  I saw a sign and we followed it even though we didn't know what it meant.  We drove down a narrow paved path covered in downed pine needles.  The path followed a river that ran low because of the dry season.  At the end is where we found and old French hydro-electric plant from the 1940's.  Unlike many things in Dalat, this electric plant had been well maintained.  The only ruins there were the old on-site housing for the workers, which were left to the elements.  The plant provided a serene hideaway buried at a notch in the valley along a river.  It made New York and everything else seem a million miles away.  After leaving we decided to find the lake or reservoir that supplied the plant, and did so some 3 or 4 kilometers down the road.  From there we rode on, and stopped when, while riding along the reservoir, I noticed a herd of water buffalo wading along the bank.  We just stopped the bikes and watched them watching us for a little while.  We continued farther still.  We journeyed far from Dalat up and down mountainsides until we reached the end of the paved road.  If we were to go any farther it would be over dirt and rocks.  We decided that this would be the time to return and did so.  As we ventured back to Dalat the skies turned black and the rains began to fall, terrible heavy rain, until we had to stop.  We took shelter in the gateway to a small garden in the mountains, and stood there shivering.  We waited for the rain to slow and then we rode on and home.

New Hat

I'm going to look good in this.  All of the old men in Dalat wear these style hats with suit jackets and waistcoats.  I'm thinking of stealing the look from them.

Cafe Moc

There isn't much to do in Dalat.  There isn't much nightlife.  One thing they do have is coffee, and with it, cafes.  Cafe Moc is situated in the cellar of an old French style villa.  On Fridays they have live music, and of particular note is the guitarist.  It's mostly traditional Vietnamese love songs, or more accurately songs of unrequited love.  They will also do instrumentals of old Spanish music or Mediterranean music.  In Dalat, on occasion, it is hard to remember that I'm in Asia and not somewhere in the northern Basque region.

Rodney Dangerfield of English Teachers

I was looking through my class pics and then I noticed this one.

Tiger Falls

While we may not have beaches in Dalat, we do have many secluded and sometimes hidden waterfalls.  One such waterfall is Tiger Falls.  It is located about 20K east of the city with only a minor street sign marking the turn off along a narrow mountain road.  It is worth the trip and the ride, if one wants to find themselves alone in the woods surrounded by the sound of falling water.  Just be careful crossing the rickety rope bridge.