I find it funny that this time last year I was thinking of coming here and now, one year on, I'm thinking of coming back. I woke up this morning (ahem, this afternoon) and BANG, out of nowhere my mind is full of images, memories and dreams of home. Maybe it's that Christmas/end-of-year feeling, maybe it's that everyone is leaving in the next few weeks, maybe it's that I spent last night hanging out with the most true-blue Aussies I've ever met, or maybe it was that I was still a bit drunk from the night before. Either way, I'm in a very nostalgic mood right now. I always told myself that I wouldn't go home until I felt it was time and I'm really feeling that right now. I'm still loving this place, but it's almost time to move on.

Anyway, it's that time of year again, peoples. Do they even celebrate Xmas in Vietnam? The answer is a big YES. Less than ten years ago you could have walked down the main streets of downtown Saigon and not even seen a single Xmas light or Santa, but oh boy has this place changed a lot since then. Xmas season has become all the rage here now. And what does that mean in this city? Massive motorbike traffic jams at roadside Christmas carol gatherings, over-the-top stuffed Santa displays, lame-ass boy-bands singing Vietnamese versions of English Xmas songs and lots of Christmas lights everywhere, with hoardes of curious locals taking happy family snaps. Downtown Saigon has become a crowded zoo of scooters, lights, Xmas displays, countryfolk and tourists in the evening, all come to spread some Christmas cheer and clog the already-crowded streets. Any kind of large event in this city translates to massive traffic chaos. Christmas seems to be second only to Tet, Vietnamese New Year, which luckily I'll avoid since I'm going to be out of country.

In other news, I finally killed my beloved bike after a weekend Mekong Delta road trip. The Mekong Delta is one of the largest river deltas in the world, beginning somewhere up in the Himalayas and winding its way down through Laos, Cambodia (in the form of the Mekong River), and finally ending in Southern Vietnam. It stretches along the coast from around Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City, one of the great Deltas of the world along with the Nile. The Mekong Delta region, south of HCMC, is the ricebasket of Vietnam and home to the friendliest people I've ever met anywhere. I chose to spend a weekend roadtripping down over going to Vietnam's only open-air music festival, Loretofest. I went with one of my housemates, Chimene, and Mikey, who works with rural development in the city of Long Xuyen, second-biggest city in the Mekong Delta region. There's only about ten foreigners living in this city, and all of them live in the same university dorm. So we stayed there the night. I got stuck with the couch and molested by mozzies. The drive back was very pleasant, not as spectacular as the the majestic sea cliffs and lush jungle of Central Vietnam, but it had a special charm of its own; rolling rice paddies and green countryside, children playing alongside the road, butterflies and pretty flying things and just a maze of rivers and boats and ferries. We stopped in the Mekong Capital of Can Tho for lunch on the way up, which is home to the half-completed biggest suspension bridge in pretty much all of SE Asia, which collapsed during construction some time last year killing around 60 workers and making world news.

After we returned home on Sunday night, my bike was barely running. The only way I could start the thing was by running, no, SPRINTING, down my alleyway with it, much to the amusement of the neighbours. I considered blowing it up in a field somewhere or just driving it into a wall or pushing it off a cliff for kicks, but I decided better to just sell it in the end...for about thirty bucks. There are no quiet empty fields anywhere near this city.

Last week, FINALLY, my class got to go on their first field trip--to the post office. Only in Vietnam would you take two bus loads of preschoolers to the post office for a field trip. Also only in Vietnam would you wear flipflops with a business suit on said field trip. The idea was to post their 'Santa letters' (which were addressed to their parents). The people in the post office loved it and it wasn't long before we were surrounded by camera-toting tourists. Afterwards we drove around downtown Saigon to look at all the pretty Christmas decorations. A great waste of two hours.

Merry kwitmat from Saigon!!