I Should be Working, But...

I think I should be working right now, but it is Saturday and I did spend most of the morning moving from Tra Vinh City to where I am now,  Bac Lieu City.  It has been hard for me to get my work requirements accomplished for a myriad of reasons from lack of connectivity, weariness, travel, to a bad working environment...  Anyway, I should be able to cut a few hours into this evening to get something accomplished.  In the meantime, I thought I would put this post up before heading out to dinner.

This morning I woke up early, as usual. I have had a really hard time staying in bed past four thirty or so since I got back from the U.S.  This morning, without an alarm, I got up at 5:20 am.  I had huge bags under my eyes, but at least I got about eight hours sleep.  At just after 7 am, there was a cacaphony of drums and bells in the parking lot of the Cuu Long Hotel.  I didn't pay it much attention and it seemed over as quickly as it started.  But, it kicked off again about 30 minutes later, so I rushed down with my camera to get a few picks of the dragon dance.  The dragon dance is a common lunar new year ritual both in China and Vietnam, and it is quite the flurry of color and sound.  I grabbed this picture of the kids doing the dance.  Sorry it wasn't better composed, but these guys were jumping around like crack addicts and I had to maneuver around the crowd to get even this shot:

Today was the 15th of the lunar month of December.  The last full moon of the 2012 lunar calendar.  I am not sure if that was the reason for the dance, or if it was just some work up to Tet, but these guys seemed to have a lot of energy and it looked like they were having fun.  This was in Tra Vinh City, where the primary work is still agriculture.  Somehow, I think Tet means a lot more to these guys than it does to the folks in the city.

Anyway, there will be quite a few activities throughout the country moving into the lunar new year.  I will try to grad some better shots.  That is, if I can find some time away from work.