It's the beginning of the end, people. The date is set and the tickets are booked for my return to the motherland. My last day in Vietnam will be the fifth of May. I'll be flying into Sydney on the eighth after a 2-day stopover in Singapore, right in time for dear old mum's birthday. After my contract finishes at the end of March, I'll be heading up to the north for a month, maybe do another motorbike trip while I'm up there and hopefully get my brother to get his lazy ass out here before I head home.

I'll be in the 'Gong for two weeks before I make the move to Melbourne and start the next stage of my life.

Its funny the things you miss from home when you've been living in a place like this for a year. It's just the little things you miss the most, like the park near my house at sunset, walking to the local store to get the bread and milk (ok, so I've only done it like twice in my life, but still...), watching a movie over at a mate's place, waking up to the pleasant sound of birds chirping instead of the very unpleasant, loud, nasal and obtrusive voices of hawkers and sellers down in the alley, being able to hear nothing other than the breeze and the ocean rather than nothing other than beeping and buzzing and just being able to walk anywhere without having to fight your way through a stampede of scooters would be very nice.

I find it amazing the way that a game of football (soccer to you Americans) has the power of bringing so many people together. Vietnam's victory over Thailand into the finals and subsequent victory of the cup over Christmas brought out people of all kinds onto the streets of Saigon in a truly spectacular fashion. The whole city was completely clogged, it was impossible to go anywhere. Saucepan banging, flag waving, santa-hat wearing, engine-revving, beer-bottle helmet bashing, screaming and cheering and speeding and much general craziness ensued. Them Vietnamese sure love their football. Or just beating other people, something poor old Vietnam hasn't experienced since the war back in the 70's.

Gotta hand it to them though, they sure know how to celebrate. Jump on the bike, beer in one hand, a big flag in the other, a few mates on the back, find the nearest roundabout, cause a traffic jam and scream your head off while bashing the beer bottle on your helmet and waving the flag around, while standing on the motorbike, with a few mates and random other drunk people.

New Years was for sure the most random NYE ever. It was a joke compared to the way-over-the-top fireworks extravaganza I'm used to from back home. Forget fireworks, they didn't even have a countdown! A few thousand Vietnamese gathered at the centre of town around Ben Thanh market. And waited. I was with a small crowd of pretty drunk foreigners, and we made our way right to the centre. At midnight, a few balloons were let off, some people cheered, and that was it basicly. We pretty much became the New Year celebration, all 20 of us, spraying everyone within reach with champagne, foam and confetti, singing some drunken songs at the top of our voices, followed by more spraying. Then everyone left. Weird...

In other news, I'm off to Borneo and Malaysia for a few weeks to kick back on a sunny beach and maybe treck some jungles while I'm at it. First 'holiday' in a year, unless you count the last year as a holiday that never really ended. So its a holiday from the holiday thats not really a holiday...