Springtime is festival time and this year spring came earlier. The weather was warm and sunny. This was good as Tet was early this year. TetTet feels like a long time ago - and so it was - but I feel I still need to record the celebrations.The week leading up to Tet was rather busy with cleaning, tidying, stocking up (food for survival until the markets re-opened, goodies for visitors and to take as gifts when visiting). There was also time for a couple of parti...

Been off the air for a while :( so have a bit of catching up to do.Lap Xuong I mentioned in my last post that I helped make Lap Xuong, a traditional sausage eaten at Tet - here's how it goes. Each day Huyen would ride in on her motorbike laden with ingredients and implements as only the Vietnamese do. She would sit out front on a low stool with a huge wooden chopping board and chop up slabs of pork meat and fat. In a large plastic basin she would then mix ...

My answer could have been "which Mrs Trang?", but actually no Mrs Trang had called me in a while - so instead I asked what about. "Tomorrow I will come and we will cook together and the TV will come and film (ah, that Mrs Trang) and they will interview you and we will have a party after". This was at 3 o'clock in the afternoon (They are not big on forward planning here) and this was the first I'd heard about it.I had just wandered out and offered to help ...

The weather is of course the most obvious sign of change. The cooler days, warmer clothing and shorter days mean winter is again on it's way. (Though the weather did bounce back to hot and sticky again for a while, and Christmas is going to be warmer than last year). It's a reminder we've just passed our first anniversary in Tuyen Quang. Two thirds of our time gone!Staff are changing too. Promotion, maternity leave and study leave have seen several di...

We're just back from the Olympics! That is the 11th regional university and college olympics for northern provinces around Tuyen Quang, at the Lao Cai Teachers Training College. Held every two years, as well as in sports and athletics, there are also competitions in mathematics, IT, informatics (?), English, performing arts and probably some others I've missed. Owen was to be a judge in the English competition so we went as part of the Tan Trao University...