Finally, the construction nonsense is coming to an end

One of the major downsides of living in Da Nang is the endless noise. It seems that no matter where you go in this city there is construction going on particularly on the side of the river I live on near the beach. The rapid expansion to accommodate an ever-growing tourist population means that even existing structures are torn down so that it can be made taller. The land is extremely expensive and they are damn near out of it.

It was particularly annoying when a 10-storey building got built right outside my bedroom windows across the street and the constant banging, deliveries, and drilling has been going on for a year.

There are noise ordinance laws in this city but just like most any other law in this city and perhaps the entire country, it is rarely enforced. Certain activities appear to have the greenlight to take place at night and for us this was cement trucks and these machines that can get the cement up to the higher floors with some sort of magical vertical transport.

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They look like this and are pretty amazing pieces of technology. I had never seen one until I moved here because in the places that I lived in the past, buildings either were not this tall or if they were they used steel.

Anyway, the pump is actually quite a quiet piece of machinery so that never bothered me. What did bother me was the cement delivery trucks that don't give two shits about if they are bothering anyone in the neighborhood. Instead of communicating with the other people in the crew via radio they instead honk the bejesus out of their horns and of course, have extremely loud warning beeps for when the truck is backing up, which it frequently is. These noise pollution at times would carry on until midnight or beyond, and there is nothing you can do to stop them.

Construction is not allowed to begin before 7am but every now and then there would be some overachiever that is banging on shit before 7am because I guess it is just the power tools that are not allowed. There were some mornings that I think if I had a rifle, I would have fired off a few warning shots. These guys almost never took breaks either, they would work on weekends and holidays and therefore we got almost zero peace for the past year. My building has double-glazed windows and these work pretty well but nothing can stop the amount of noise that these people were making.

I am absolutely delighted that they are damn near finished and are now just running electrical stuff and putting in furniture for their upcoming grand opening that no doubt will be a noise filled festival of sorts that I am definitely going to steal beer from.

What concerns me now is this: This is the plot of land directly next to the near completed build and it is two plots of vacant land. These are two of the ONLY vacant plots of land in the entire area and you can bet your bottom dollar that it is only a matter of time before someone comes by and does essentially exactly the same thing in this area much to the chagrin of the people not just in my building, but also the people in that brand new building. They plan on this happening and that is why there are very few windows on the side of the new condos.

All I can do is keep my fingers crossed and hope that the land is too expensive for any potential buyers to come along too quickly. I have heard that these small plots of land cost more than a million dollars.

Nadi and I had a cause for celebration when the last truck carried away the last of their construction debris that they were unable to bury (which is another story in itself as to why that is allowed.)

A brought a couple of beers for me and a chewy stick for Nadi and we sat on the roof in near silence for the first afternoon in about a year. She loved it, I loved it. Let's hope it can last a little while before it all starts up again.