This morning the swell is teeny and the sun is hiding behind a pale sea-misty haze. In the lead up to the first nippers morning of the year I was sending regular prayers to Huey for conditions just like this. No sun or surf here thanks.

Sounds strange, doesn’t it?

I have a Tết-induced hangover and one line (‘Tết, Tết, Tết, Tết, Tết, Tết, Tết, Tết, Tết, Tết, Tết, Tết đến rồi!’) of a Vietnam-meets-Britney-Spears pop tune stuck in my head.

No. Nothing to do with late night partying and copious amounts of alcohol.

If I compare Australian and Vietnamese society, some things are identical. Some things are similar (‘same-same but different’!). And some are not at all alike. These differences are, in part, what make Vietnam such a fascinating place for an Australian volunteer.

There are a few differences, though, that I’d change if I could – and top of my magic wand list is the deeply ingrained acceptance of smoking.

 It’s the middle of winter here – as well as the ‘moldy season’. While the latter disturbs me, most folks here are far more concerned about the   temperature. My colleagues shrug dismissively at my chuntering about green and white furry stuff sprouting on everything from wallpaper to rescue manikins.

Convenient timing saw me arrive here just as the city’s swimming teachers, water safety volunteers and lifeguards, as well the Vietnamese government and bureaucracy, geared up to host the World Conference on Drowning Prevention.  

With appearances by several lifesaving luminaries – including Patron of the Royal Life Saving Society Australia, Her Excellency the Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, Ms Quentin Bryce – the conference was a terrific success.

As far as I can work out, the literal translation of my role here is ‘teacher of rescue on the beach’ – though I’m quite sure some people assume that I am a swimming teacher in disguise. This is probably only partly because of my dreadful Vietnamese. In an effort to address the terrible drowning statistics here, there has been a great deal of effort invested into survival swimming programs for children – so the odd appearance of foreign swimming teachers doesn’t hold too much mystery for locals. ‘Teachers of beach rescue’, however, are a new concept to a population that really doesn’t have a good understanding of how to stay safe at the beach.

Anyone who has travelled in South East Asia will have heard the ubiquitous cry ‘Where you from?’ which often heralds an attempt to sell you a hand of bananas / a dozen chopstick holders / a fearsome pair of house-sized marble dragons.

I’m glad to say that I have found greetings aimed at foreigners in Danang to be not nearly so commercial. ‘Where you from?’ is still often the leading question but people are genuinely interested in my response – without necessarily seeing me as the source of a sale.

I’ve been an active volunteer lifesaver since joining Bondi Surf Bathers’ Life Saving Club as a 19 year old uni student in 1999. I’ll admit that I was attracted initially to lifesaving as a good excuse to spend my weekends at the beach – with any associated guilt balanced by helping to provide an essential community service. I quickly became involved in competitive surfboat rowing – as a member of Bondi’s first ever women’s crew – and soon couldn’t imagine a life without lifesaving.

One of my biggest dilemmas in preparing to come to Vietnam was that the surf life saving association with which I would be working didn’t formally exist yet.

Last week marked the ‘halfway’ point of what I have started to think of – with apologies to Peter Mayle – as my ‘year in thongs’ in this very beautiful, rapidly developing country.