A month after Tet I'll finally pull my finger out and write about it!

As I'm now on a full time teaching contract at work I only got 4 days holiday for Tet as opposed to the 2 weeks I've had in previous years but I took a day off to get a full week and it was paid holiday so I can't argue with that too much. I had to go to work at the start of the Tet break along with the other full time staff but as the school was closed to students that meant there wasn't much to do. We spent most of the time doing a whole lot of not much but we did manage to edit some new exams.

I then had my week off for Tet and flew to Hoi An to get a bit of warmth and get out of Hanoi. Hanoi airport is a disaster just before Tet and the flight was full of poeple carrying branches and flowers with them, because apparently trees and flowers only grow in Hanoi, so the journey wasn't that pleasant. Landed at Danang airport to find that they've finally finished the new airport terminal there so you no longer go through what seems like a relic of the war when getting off the plane and instead get to go through a fully functioning modern airport! Was picked up at the airport and taken to my hotel in Hoi An and after checking in I went into the centre to find something to eat and found that the whole town had lanterns on display for Tet.



I spent some time walking by the river along as it's pretty year round, but even prettier at Tet with all the lanterns on display and candles floating down the river.



The next day was new year's eve so the town was gearing up for the celebrations. In the evening there were a couple of stages set up along with a bunch of games, the most popular being ones that involved that social evil of gambling! So popular were they that the electricity to them was switched off at 11 to stop them taking attention away from what was happening on the stage! The entertainment was a whole bunch of singing and dancing broken up with speeches



and the grand finale of everyone coming out on stage as some sparkler type fireworks were set off across the stage. The fireworks burnt through whatever had been used to string them across the stage and fell onto all the equipment along the edge of the stage, narrowly missing the performers. Go Vietnam! At midnight (well, a couple of minutes before. The guy in charge of reading time clearly isn't very good at it) there was a count down and then a bunch of fireworks.



They were much better than the fireworks in Hanoi last year, presumably because they had more open space and didn't have to worry about tall trees and buildings getting in the way.

The next day, new year's day, was pretty quiet as most businesses were shut. The spa across the road was still open though so I spent half a day there and then went into town to spend the rest of the day sitting in a cafe. As Hoi An is a tourist town there were still a fair few cafes and restaurants open on new year's day making it a much better choice than Hanoi where pretty much everything shuts. Over the next few days of the new year the town got busier again as more and more businesses reopened and bus loads full of tourists from Saigon showed up. By the end of the week pretty much everything was open again so I finally went to some tailors and got some skirts made. I spent the rest of the week by the pool at the hotel, visiting an assortment of cafes for food that is hard to find in Hanoi, both Vietnamese and Western, and walking around the surrounding islands where you can find peace a quiet, a rare thing in Hanoi! Also took in some pretty sunsets (of course!!)



It was a nice relaxing week. As I've been to Hoi An several times before I didn't feel guilty about doing nothing much while there and it is a nice small town so it makes a nice change to Hanoi. There are loads of nice restaurants there, including the only Italian restaurant I've found in Vietnam that knows what a real spaghetti carbonara is all about, and some cheap Vietnamese restaurants selling Cau Lau, one of my favourite Vietnamese dishes and something that is pretty much impossible to find in Hanoi. I ate well that week!

Pics here

I'm so lazy when it comes to writing on this thing now!! So the last thing I wrote about was my trip to New Zealand. A couple of weeks after I returned to Hanoi my Grandad died so I had an unplanned trip back to the UK to go to the funeral. While it was a horrible reason to be coming home, it was nice to spend a week and a half back in the UK.

I was lucky enough to find a flight back to the UK at such short notice so close to Christmas that wasn't ridiculously expensive, so this time I got to sample the delights of Qatar Airways. Most other airlines were well over a grand, some several thousand pounds a ticket, or were sold out completely. There were one or two that were tediously long and required 36+ hours to get from Hanoi to London. Qatar was a pretty good deal though and although I had to go via Bangkok and Doha I didn't have to spend long in either place. As an added bonus they let you onto the plane at Noi Bai as soon as its ready so instead of having to spend ages on uncomfortable metal chairs in the worlds lamest international departure lounge you get to go onto the plane and start watching movies a good hour before you depart. The plane to Bangkok went on to Doha but instead of kicking you off the plane at BKK you get to stay on and once you've identified your bags you can continue watching your movie while the ground staff come on and clean around you which is much nicer than having to fanny about getting off the plane just to sit next to it for a bit before getting back on. See LAX, it can be done!! There is no need to put people into a little room next to their plane when they fly from London to Auckland!

Once I got to Heathrow I had the speediest ever exit from the airport as there were no queues for the biometric passport barriers so I managed to get a relatively early bus to Reading to get a train to Swindon. Decided to get a taxi from there to my house as it had all been a bit last minute and so I really wasn't prepared for the cold - after shivering at Reading station in my flip flops I decided to give waiting at the bus station for who knows how long a miss! Once back in Bassett I walked into the town in an attempt to not give in to the temptation of having a nana nap and discovered that Costa Coffee have moved into Bassett. As I walked past I saw one of my friends inside so I went in and had a chat in the warm. It was nice to catch up with an old school friend! That evening I was treated to a roast which hands down beat the one I'd had in Auckland and was all the incentive I needed to not give into the jet lag too early!

Spent most of my time at home doing a bit of shopping and eating pub grub with the family, but I also took a couple of trips to meet people. I went to London for the day and met Nina in the evening for dinner after spending the day doing some shopping and checking out all the Christmas stuff that was going on. Hanoi doesn't really go all out for Christmas so it was nice to see some fancy lights and pretty Christmas trees. I went to Hyde Park but the icy wind blowing across it meant I didn't stay there long. I went to Covent Garden which always goes overboard on the festive spirit and I also went to Somerset House. Was killing time waiting for Nina in the evening and managed to time a walk across Waterloo Bridge as the sun was going down which was rather lovely.



I also went to Bath to meet Kyle and Liz. It was freezing but at least I wasn't wearing flip flips this time! We went to a few shops and then went for lunch at a buffet place. It was actually pretty good, plus they had Yorkshire puddings on offer!!! They also had an ice cream station where you could choose your flavour of ice cream and then get it mixed with smashed up malteasers. Awesome! After lunch we stayed warm in Cafe Nero for a while before braving the cold a little more for some photos complete with Asian posing.



My friend Mat also came to visit Bassett and we went for an lovely pub lunch at one of the pubs in Bassett. I'd been there for drinks before but never to eat but it was a pretty nice meal! When we left the pub it had started to snow so we headed to Avebury. Sadly the snow had stopped by the time we got there but we still had a nice walk round some of the stones and paid a visit to the National Trust shop. As it was so cold there weren't many other people getting in the way and cluttering up the place!



As my sister came home for the weekend to go to the funeral we were put in charge of decorating the christmas tree - I don't think we did too bad a job!



It's certainly nicer than my pokey little store bought Christmas tree I picked up in Hanoi on Xmas Eve.



The day after the funeral I had to fly back to Vietnam as I didn't want to be cheeky and push my manager's kindness too far by taking off more time than necessary. It really sucked to get back to Vietnam on the 21st Dec, especially as I arrived late at night and had to be at work at 7am the next morning. In the end though Christmas wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be even though it's not such a big deal here. Some people from work were going for dinner on Xmas eve and I joined them. It was actually quite a nice evening - the buffet was one that had been on offer since Thanksgiving so it had some rather strange non-Christmassy food like macaroni cheese but there was lots of turkey and stuffing and so many types of potato so it wasn't all bad. There was also sangria and beer and we spent a few hours there before trying to find another place for drinks afterwards. We went to a shisha bar someone recommended and they were closing up but when they saw the size of our group they decided to reopen and even agreed to turn off the loud techno music they had been playing! On Christmas day I didn't do a whole lot, but as I'd been able to bring back some gifts from the UK and I had some Christmas movies I managed to entertain myself. In the evening I made a baby Xmas dinner and my friend Tuan joined me before going to the airport to pick up some tourists. He bought with him the biggest bunch of flowers I've ever seen in my life! I made him watch the Snowman and he seemed to enjoy it, and also fed him Christmas candy after dinner. All in all Christmas wasn't too bad!



Here are the photos