The holiday season is over for another year and I’m back at work. The university is full of noisy students wondering what they’ve let themselves in for and depressed teachers back after a longish break. ( Only 3 weeks, most universities would have more but we really work for our living here. )
The roads are full of rush hour motorbikes and that makes my ride home after work a lot more interesting. I have to be constantly on the alert and practise my 360 degree vision skills if I want to get home in one piece.
Tet, or Vietnamese New Year, is celebrated a bit like we do Christmas. There’s food, drink, relatives and gift giving. Money in red envelopes is the normal gift so there’s no problem having to take the unwanted present back to the shops the next day. Instead of Christmas trees people have blossom clad branches, often a whole shrub but, as there is no discernable season here, the branches are stripped of leaves and have bright yellow flowers glued to them. Yellow seams to be the colour of spring no matter where you live. And just like Christmas trees, once it’s all over the branches are dumped somewhere and forgotten about.
I’m back at work for the next 12 week with a new set of students but mercifully there is a short break at the beginning of May when we have a long weekend. Cambodia gave me a taste for holidaying, relaxing and travelling which has taken a while to shake off.
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