Destination: Vietnam

(Hanois AVIs - Australian Volunteers International - lunching with Australian Ambassador Bill Tweddell and his wife Chris, November 2005)

(Tuesday, 27 September 2005)

In December 2004 I came across an exciting job advertisement looking for a radio professional to work in Vietnam. There were several reasons why I was trawling the Australian Volunteers International (AVI) website. I wanted to travel. I wanted to work in broadcasting. I knew I needed to make a break, that my life had become stale. I was really beginning to feel trapped (see a forthcoming entry, "Life in Australia"). I had started getting very fussy about things like matching crockery and going to Ikea. I was spending way too much on DVDs. Basically, I was forgetting myself in the minutae of mundane existence. And I thought, "hey, I can do that anywhere, not just in Australia!". Actually I hoped my life would change, and it has. Not through Amway, or love (my romantic prospects look pretty grim in Vietnam), or healthy living. But through a true revolution of the soul.

Basically, in Australia, I was way too detached. My head has always ruled my heart, and working in communications meant that I could be glib on as well as off the job. When I felt sad, most of the time I blamed it on a lack of protein. I was working 60 hours a week and not seeing enough of my friends. (I do have low blood sugar issues, but I can get upset for other reasons than needing a can of tuna. Man! I hate tuna now. I have eaten so much of it.)

I was seeing way too much of my parents. At the time, I was living behind a secondhand bookshop in a dismal one-bedroom apartment, and in general, was seeing way too much of everybody. Because I am so extroverted and merry with people, I need to spend a lot of time alone or I just keel over. No more living behind a shop for me.


I was free to leave, after 7 and a half years of relationships with people who either didn't like to travel, or didn't like to travel the same way as me. I like backpacking, going to little guesthouses, roughing it a little. I don't like hotels, they're so impersonal. I want to go to a country and stay for a little. When I'm on holiday, I combine "action days" (up at 7am for a full day and a self-geared itinerary) with "mellow days" - these are self-explanatory. I still feel guilty about having mellow days while on holiday, but I know that's only because I'm slightly eccentric about work.

I wanted to work in media, but had left it too late to go to Europe or Britain. And I applied for a job in New Zealand television, but they rejected me (did make a shortlist though). Plus there's not a huge cultural challenge there.

So Vietnam it was, and that impulsive decision demonstrates that I was the same person in Australia as I am now. But I just couldn't feel it. For some reason, heat, cheap beer, short working hours, and being overcharged for almost everything by avaricious locals were what was necessary for me to make the most of my life.

The friends I have here are amazing. But it's not just them, but me. In Vietnam, I am warm, direct, bold, successful. In Australia, my ineffectual behaviour was disguised by dependence on silly coffee in tall polystyrene cups (caramel latte, anyone?). No matter how bad life got, there was always sushi for lunch, the peacefulness of a bookstore or library, a long, decadent phone call with your best friend. The Saturday Age at your favourite cafe. I think it's time to talk about Life in Australia...