Steamed Prawns With Beer

This is a very easy dish to cook; all you need to do is drink half of your beer and use the other half of the bottle to soak the prawns for about three to five minutes. But the amount of beer depends on how many prawns you are going to cook as the prawns must be just covered by beer.

Anyway, after three to five minutes soaking, put the pan on the heat and start cooking. Cooking time depends on the amount but normally, as a guide, for half a kilogram of prawns, it takes about 15 minutes. The prawns should come to the boil and then simmer for the remaining time on a lower heat.

Afterwards, you should have nice firm sweet prawn with a fainst hint of the beer. Dip in a simple paste of salt, pepper, lime amd chili.
Again, this recipe is from my good friend - Ly, who owns the very popular 86 Seafood Restaurant in Tran Phu St in Nha Trang.

Angkor Wat - Siem Riep 4

We took a day off from sightseeing to relax at the hotel pool and walk around the town, the old market and try some specialties of Siem Riep. Even though the weather was very hot my family loved the friendly atmosphere, nice people and the food from the old market. One of the highlights of the trip for me was that my mother, for the first time ever, at more than 70 years of age, got into a swimming pool to swim and she can swim every well. My nephew, my sister and I told her to walk into the pool to let her feet relax and take some photos with my sister. Then we pulled her into the middle of the pool for a bit of paddling. Truly a great moment to see!

On our last day at Siem Reap, our tuk-tuk driver Pheav took us to visit Banteay Srei Temple which has some of the most beautiful stone carvings in the world. This temple is about a 45 minute jouney by tuk-tuk from Siem Reap but we got a really good look at rural life in Cambodia along the road. My mother loved this temple the most because because of the carving and she was very impressed at the Cambodian government's efforts to maintain it so well. As UNESCO world heritage sites, they are obviously a very important source of revenue for the country.

Our next stop was the Ta Prohm Temple. My sister and my nephew couldn't believe those amazing huge trees growing throughout the temples and how nature and man's structures could become like one. We noticed this time that lots of restoration work was being carried out and that many foreign organisations help out.

Anyway, my family's visit to Siem Reap was great. We all learnt something new, about the different culture, experienced the beauty of the great temples and the charm of the Cambodians. The best thing from the trip was seeing the happiness that my mother showed after so many years of her working and sorting out the difficulties of our lives. Can't wait to make another trip somewhere next year with her.

Thanks to the Central Boutique Angkor staff and especially Mr Pheav for giving my family some great times in Siem Reap!!!!!

Angkor Wat - Siem Riep 3

We left the hotel at 5 am and headed to Angkor Wat. As we approached, the sun was starting to rise up behind the amazing temple. The quiet of the morning and the early fresh cool wind blowing across our faces was a nice way to wake up. And what spectacular scenery. My mum said, "Angkor temple looks so beautiful and well maintained, why don't we have something as beautiful as this in Vietnam???" I told her that we have different things of beauty in Vietnam, from the north to the south, like the Cham towers, Halong Bay, and Phong Nha Cave, which are all world heritage sites, too.

Anyway, we sat outside and watched the sunrise for about an hour, before walking into the temple to start our day. My main duty was explaining the site and taking photos for everyone. Thank god that I like photography and I enjoy doing this kind of work. My sister and my nephew love having thier photo taken and I spent most of the time focusing on them in different corners of the site.

We walked toward the entrance and we saw a group of 30 very loud Chinese people talking to each other. We tried to avoid them but they seemed everywhere. I think this kind of place needs quiet for people to enjoy its peaceful beauty instead of shouting and arguing.

Our great regular guide Pheav next took us to Bayon Temple and he told us about its history when we arrived and offered us water that he had prepared in an ice container. We very much appreciated his attention to this kind of detail. I told my mother this is my favorite temple in Siem Riep and this is the third time I had been here, the first 2 times during my first trip last year. We were all wondering how people in that generation could make these amazingly huge statues and erect them on hilltops. We spent more than an hour wandering around and taking heaps of photos, of course!!! On the way out, we saw quite a few old women sitting inside the entrance chatting in their traditional costumes after finishing their prayers. I wish I could speak Cambodian so that I could have got some special information about the temples in Siem Riep and especially Bayon temple.

Anyway, after a few hours my mother looked a bit tired and we decided to head back to the hotel to have lunch and jump into the hotel pool to cool down. Later in the day, we went to the night market at about 6 for dinner
To be continued...

Angkor Wat - Siem Riep 2

On our first day in Siem Reap, after traveling from Nha Trang, we relaxed for most of the afternoon at the hotel and then walked to the night market for dinner and a bit of shopping. We wondered around the night market for about an hour then we sat down at one of the many food stall around the area. We picked quite a few different dishes including rice, noodles and some stirfried veggies to taste the Cambodian style. As a chef, my sister loved Cambodian cuisine very much. It's a bit similar to Vietnamese dishes but there is something special in their style.

I encouraged my mum to try the fish massage and after a few refusals, she joined with us and she laugh so much. It is not very often that I see my mum so happy since my father and my eldest sister passed away. I realized, sometimes just a very simple thing could make somebody just that happy. I'm glad she tried a new thing like that. Mr Pheav, our great tour guide and tuk tuk driver came and after I took the family home, I headed to pub street to discover the Siem Riep night life. I stopped at a cafe and sat outside drinking a mojito and watched people walking past. I have to admit that there are heaps of prostitutes around, walking up and down trying to find clients.

I felt bored after an hour and took a tuk tuk back to the hotel at 10.30pm. A sunrise tour to Angkor Wat was waiting for me and my family at 5am. I was sure my family would love this amazing view just I did the first time. My mum was still awake when I got back and my nephew was in the pool swimming. I joined him for a few laps then headed to bed. This is such a beautiful hotel, very quiet compared to crazy, noisy Hanoi. I was sure to sleep well before the early start the next day.
To be continued......

Angkor Wat - Siem Riep 1

I promise myself that I would take my mother to one country in South East Asia every year and I have been doing it for the last 3 years. My brothers and sisters also contribute some money for the trip and I'm more than happy to take my mum with me. She has been to Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and this year I took her to Angkor Wat - Cambodia. As with other trips, Minh, my sister joined us along with my nephew, Phong.

We arrived in Saigon from Nha Trang at 5.30 am and we took a taxi directly to Tan Son Nhat International Airport as we were leaving Saigon at 9.45 am and my family were so worried about missing our flight. Anyway, we didn't, and arrived in Siem Reap after about an hour flight. I could see from their eyes that my family were very excited about being there to discover one of the most famous world heritage sites in the world.

We got picked up by the Central Boutique Resort staff. The very warm welcome and big smiles from the staff made all of our tiredness disappear. The hotel is centrally located, about 7 minutes walk to the night market and pub street which is very convenient. I loved the resort's pool and the welcome drink of tea, the sweet staff and the strong free wifi. My nephew and I decided to jump into the pool after checking in to refresh ourselves. So cool!

We had lunch at the hotel and I was very impressed with the presentation of the food. I never saw a sour face from any of the hotel staff either - the whole time we were there. No wonder the hotel is busy most of the time!!! I felt bad that I didn't use their tour services but I had already booked a tour guide whose services I had used last year, Mr Sopheara Pheav. He is one of the best tour guides in town, charges a very reasonable price, speaks good English, and has good knowledge about his great home town.

My family loved travelling around by tuk tuk especially since my mother and my sister get car sickwhen they go by regular car.The tuk tuk also allowed us to have a really good look at the surrounding scenery as we went along. Anyway, Pheav met us on the first afternoon as we planned by email to discuss our tours the next few days. I didn't really want to do a tour everyday because my mother is over 70 now. I wanted to see her enjoy the amazing temples slowly and feel it instead of rushing around like other tourists. Pheav and I negotiated a suitable plan and he recommended that we bought a 3 day pass which cost $40 per person and is valid for a week. We started out journey the next day to see the sunrise and my favorite Bayon temple.
To be continued .....

Steamed Prawns In Coconut Juice

I think seafood a pretty popular choice for the most of the world's population. And for me prawns are the most special as we can cook it in so many ways. I usually cook seafood according to my best friend's recommendations; her family owns a well-known seafood restaurant in Nha Trang called Gio ("Wind") at 86 Tran Phu Street.

Yesterday, after a morning street food tour with my clients, I stopped by my regular seafood shop at the Nghi Tam market to buy some prawns for dinner. I decided to cook steamed prawns with coconut juice for dinner. This is one of my favorite dish and not very difficult to make, only needing a few minutes to cook. I got the recipe from my friend in Nha Trang. Let me know what you think.
Ingredients: Coconut juice, prawns, garlic
Boil the coconut juice, add the garlic (lightly mashed) and prawns for about 7 minutes.
Serve it with mixed salt, pepper, chili and lemon.
Don't forget to have a glass of white wine or beer when you enjoy this delicious and healthy prawn dish.

Nha Trang - Wedding

I went back to Nha Trang to attend my cousin Huyen's wedding. that was the main purpose and the other reason was to take my mother, sister and my niece on a short trip to visit Siem Riep. I'm always happy to be at home with my family and also to visit old friends.

I have been to so many weddings before, mostly in the north and they are celebrated differently compared to the south. Anyhow, I like to see the ceremony of gift giving between the parents to their children and their relatives as well. Everyone loves posing for photos and sometimes I had to be patient as it takes a little while just putting the earings or necklace on the bride.

In the evening, everyone went to the hotel reception centre for dinner and the main wedding celebration including opening champagne and cuting the 5 storey cake. There was entertainment on the stage while people were eating and the MC also asked if anyone would like to come up to the stage and sing a song to congratulate the young couple. My nephews from Lam Dong and Hanoi came up and sang 3 songs, even Huyen's father - Mr Hop came up and sang 2 songs. It was so funny !!!!

The wedding was very well organized by the reception centre though the entertainment was a bit over the top at times. They served very delicious food and the staff were really helpful. Everyone had a great time at the wedding and we finished at 9pm. While the other guests went home, my mother, my sister, my niece and I went to the railway station to catch a late night train to Saigon before the morning flight to Siem Riep. More on that later.
Congratulations to Huyen and Tuan, all the best for your future happiness.

Bangkok

On the trip to Bangkok last year with Mum, we stayed at the Vista Residence Bangkok. This is kind of a boutique hotel, small, great food and extremely friendly. The receptionist is the hotel owner's daughter who had been studied hospitality in Switzerland so she's fluent in English and basically she knows how to manage a hotel very well. After the political problems last year, the hotel gave a great promotion for accommodation such as stay 1 night get 1 night free and Internet and breakfast which was great for us as we were staying in Bangkok for 4 nights. The hotel is located about 200 meters away from the National Stadium and the sky train station is nearby which was pretty convenient. We used the skytrain everyday to go to the shopping centres and different places around Bangkok. One of the other highlight of the hotel was the food as the chef served delicious food with nice presentation.

Following the recommendation of the hotel staff, we took the skytrain to Chit Lom, one of the biggest shopping centers in Bangkok which seemed to be having lots of sales. We wandered around the center for about 2 hours and I bought a tennis bag, tennis shoes and my family bought too much stuff to mention. There were so many sales but unfortunately they are still more expensive compared to Hanoi especially sport stuff.

The next day, we hired a taxi to the floating market and on the way back we visited the King's Palace. My family had a great day and a funny thing happened involving my sister trying to pay for a postcard. She wanted to pay for 1 more postcard but her English is limited and they had a very funny argument which we were laughing out loud about on the way back to the hotel. My sister said "More One" instead of "One More" and the seller didn't understand.

During our stay, we also visited some pagodas, markets and night life in Bangkok. We all loved the foot massages and we had one almost every night after the long days discovering Bangkok.

My family enjoyed Bangkok very much especially my mum. She particularly loved the pagodas around Bangkok and the hotel staff. Thanks heaps to the hotel staff and the taxi driver who all treated us so well. Hopefully I'll see Bangkok again in the near future.

Photo Shoot

My friends Anne and Arno are leaving Vietnam for good after nearly 10 years here. They are moving to Bangladesh. I think it must have been truly hard for them to leave though. But life goes on and they are both still quite young and full of energy. I'm kind of sad and happy with their choice as I know it will be good for their careers.

Just before they left Hanoi, Anne mentioned something about doing a photo shoot around Hanoi, like the Vietnamese wedding studios do. For fun. So I offered to help them to make it happen as a gift.

On the Monday before they left, we mapped out a few locations around Hanoi and set off. Being summer, the lotus flowers were out so we thought that could be the theme of the photo shoot. They would look brilliant in the photos. We took shots around the West Lake lotus ponds and on the bamboo boat and in amongst the lotus petals being harvested to flavour tea. I coached Anne a bit to act it up and in the end she was so great. I was really impressed.

After that, we went to the road where many of Hanoi's flower sellers set up shop and we made sure to get the crazy traffic in the background. Because she's been living here so long, Anne wasn't scared at all standing in the middle of the road. She momentarily became a professional super model. We were having such fun!

Before moving on to Hoan Kiem Lake, we stopped at Anne's favorite pagoda in town. Unfortunately it was closed but we spent some time outside the pagoda and the pictures worked out very well. Anyway, we stopped at Hoan Kiem Lake for about 30 minutes to take some shots of the old gate then moved up to the Huc Bridge where most young Vietnamese take their pre- wedding photos.

We had such a great, fun day and the photos turned out very well. We wish you luck in Bangladesh. I very much appreciated your compan over the past years and keep in touch.

Wedding

There were so many things to prepare for my sister’s wedding and we spent more than just a day to get everything finished. My brother in-law asked his friends to come over to our house to help us to decorate the house. It’s so fun doing it and it reminded me lots about weddings in the past when my other sisters were getting married. My family always celebrated wedding parties at home instead of at hotels or restaurants except for my brother’s wedding. We usually bought a huge piece of carton or foam which we cut into two pigeons, hearts and names then stuck them on the wall. We also went to our neighbors to cut down some coconut leaves to make a happy gate. It’s a lot of work but we just loved it so much and we decided to do the wedding in the same style this time.

Anyway, when the time arrived my brother’s friends came in two taxis to present the groom with trays of fruit, cakes, wine, tea ….they were 6 guys in navy uniforms. It looked great and everyone seemed enjoy that part of the ceremony heaps. I wasn’t in that group as my responsibility was to be the chief photographer. I loved observing the second part of the ceremony when the family and relatives presented their gifts to the bride and groom as I am curious about what they give and what it looks like. I do prefer giving cash to be honest which they can use for whatever purpose. This is the typical way in Asia. The wedding's second party was celebrated on the same day in the evening at Angela restaurant. The celebration included 10 tables of good friends, relatives and colleagues in a private room.

I met lots of my sister’s old friends who I haven’t seen for years. They are all married with kids and successful in their jobs. We also talked about our childhood when I was a little boy chasing them to the beach or to the farm catching insects or fishing. Talking to them brought back so many beautiful memories and it made me sad thinking about those beautiful times. Wish I could turn back time!!!! My sister looked so happy on that day and we were all happy for her especially my mother. It seemed to be her day today as well. She was talking to everyone and really appreciated their appearance at the party.

The restaurant served good food with soup for the starter, chicken, prawns, seafood hotpot, squid and some vegetables. Everyone had a great time eating and drinking beers. I was glad that my family refused the music show because everyone had a chance to really talk and catch up. It would have ruined the evening as it'd be very noisy and noone could have a decent conversation.

Thanks to my family, my relatives and friends who came to celebrate this memorable event, we appreciate your work and love. We all wish my sister Hang and Quang a beautiful life ahead, not 100 years as others say but another 60 years would be great for them.

Turning 30+

It's nice to be 30+ but from now on, I think I will get older and older quicker than I thought. When I was a little boy, thinking about turning 30 years old, it seemed a really long way to go. Looking back from yesterday, Oh my, I'm a few years over it now and it is starting to get scary! Que sera sera is one of my favorite old songs and I suppose there's not much I can do about it.

Anyway, I made a nice beef hotpot with some different mushrooms at home with my close friends for lunch. My friends seemed to enjoy my cooking and we took a few photos at home. I appreciated their coming and some gifts which I told them not to bother about. It was very nice of my friends Sam, Cong and Khai.

In the evening, Viola, another friend who lives near me in Hanoi invited me and some friends over her house to have home made Canadian food for my birthday. It was really nice and quite a surprise for me. I received some gifts and Viola brought a very nice birthday cake and sang birthday songs in different languages. I got a happy shock as I didn't expect that much of a big deal. Thank you very much for making my birthday even more memorable with great food, excellent company with funny stories. I had a great evening.

I was spoiled a little bit but I love that!!!

Interviewing Mr Minh/ Ty

Craft and cottage industries receive quite a lot of attention in the media in Vietnam. Documentary programs and newspaper articles on the various artisans’ communities and villages around Hanoi are common. Artists who paint images of unisex beings suffering mental and physical torture do not get much press. For many years I had no idea that one of the guys I had been playing tennis with is an accomplished artist.

Born in 1960, Mai Hoang Minh, originally from Hue but currently living in Nha Trang, has produced over 500 paintings in the past 7 years. Minh is a self-taught painter who has not only studied his craft but also the theory and history of art. For 20 years, art has been his passion. A few years ago when I saw his paintings, I thought they were quite difficult to understand and confronting but life is complicated and as I get older I know that people experience all kinds of difficulties in their lives. I suppose Minh's paintings could represent that.

I met him again in Nha Trang recently.

How well-known are you in Vietnam?

My paintings are not as popular in Viet Nam but western people seem to enjoy collecting them. This is probably because I paint very abstractly and Vietnamese generally prefer realism in their art. In Vietnam, art is not emphasized in the education system unfortunately, and visiting art galleries here is mostly a pastime for foreigners.

What media do you work in?

Mostly oil on canvas.

When did you start to take a different direction with your work?

I started painting more abstractly in 2000 to set myself apart from other artists. I wanted to break away from the norm, to make my work stand out. I wasn’t sure how well it would be received as I know my abstract work can be confronting. When I first started painting this way, I knew it would take a while for people to take it seriously. Some people say it is depressing.

Some of the images are quite dark and disturbing. Do you set out to shock people?

No, not at all. I think it is more about awakening. The language of art makes people feel and perhaps face things from their pasts, to maybe realize what is missing. It is true that some people may be shocked and may look for a message or some meaning. I don’t paint with a message or cause in mind – that is more the realm of the people viewing the paintings. Their reactions are individual reactions, not collective ones.

You talked about art as a subject in Vietnam’s education system. What are your views on how art is taught here?

I think the teachers are very much holding onto old methodology and ideas. In art classes here, the teachers force students to follow old rules, to paint old concepts of beauty, like rural scenes and street scenes. But art and the world are things that are constantly evolving and changing. We all view the world in a different way, experience beauty in different things. Creativity needs to be encouraged and rewarded, regardless of traditional concepts of beauty.

What advice would you give to young students currently studying art?

My advice would be to embrace and learn all of the technical knowledge and skills that they can from school art classes but be bold enough to break the rules to follow their individual creative paths. It may take longer to succeed but persistence is necessary, particularly in the arts.

You mentioned that your work receives attention from foreign art lovers. Can you talk about that?

Well, I’ve been lucky enough to exhibit outside Vietnam on several occasions. I’ve had individual shows in California and Colorado. In France, too, in a town called Valenciennes in the north. At the moment I have several paintings in a show at the Fresno Discovery Museum in California.

Minh’s work can be viewed at his studio in Nha Trang (4 Nguyen Thien Thuat St).
Minh's website: www.typainter.com