Operation Nha Trang, February 2012

We are taking streetfood tour operations to the south central coast for the first two weeks of February. Nha Trang is a resort town a short flight from Saigon and very much on the standard tourist trail. While most visitors tend to spend their days on the beaches and their evenings at the bars - something we are not averse to ourselves - there is a fantastic street food scene in this town, one that we've been enjoying on a regular basis for the past ten years. In fact, in the case of Vietnamese God, his whole life as Nha Trang is his home town.


We'll be there over the Tet (lunar New Year) period, which adds a degree of colour and excitement to the atmosphere around town, as the locals hit the markets and shops in their preparations for Vietnam's biggest family occasion. But, that said, because Nha Trang is a southern coastal town, the feeling about town is still relaxed. Remember, there's always the beach.

So, what does Nha Trang have to offer the food-obsessed?

Seafood has to be the number one attraction. For breakfast, it could be in the form of fish noodle soup. In Hanoi, of course, it would be pho. In Nha Trang, expect lovely chunks of mackeral or tuna, along with fish cake slices with your threads.

After breakfast, coffee can be had street side or in a cafe by the sea. 

Street food eateries and restaurants alike are pandering to the hankerings of those who want to eat stuff from the sea morning, noon and night. Let's make the pictures do the talking.

Some of our other favourites around town include banh mi with fish cakes, banh xeo (rice flour pancakes) with baby squid and the best spring roll in Vietnam, nem nuong.

If we've whetted your appetite, and you'll be in Nha Trang between February 2-13, drop us an email for further details of our itineraries/costs.

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.

Novotel Hotel

While I've been living in Hanoi, a hotel rennaissance has been occuring in Nha Trang, Vietnam's south central coast beach resort and, also, my hometown. The long and natural bay lends itself to this kind of development, with many of the big players in international hotels moving in to claim their plot of beach front. Tran Phu Street, the boulevard running parallel to the beach, is turning into Vietnam's Gold Coast.

I wanted to check out what all the fuss is about. Of course, normally when I'm home I stay with family and when I'm on holiday I stay at family run mini-hotels, so the four-star Hotel Novotel Nha Trang is a big deal for me. A recommendation had come from a friend in the trade and when I was offered a room upgrade as I checked in, I must say that this little experience of luxury was quite nice for a change.

The hotel boasts that every room has a seaview; in some hotels that could mean out of the bathroom window. Not so here. A blue panorama of sea and islands can be seen through full length windows from air-conditioned comfort or from each room's balcony, where Nha Trang's famous afternoon seabreeze takes the edge off the heat of the day. Sunrise in the morning is truly a spectacular sight which one need not get out of bed for. That's a bonus!

The room decor is purple on white and there is no hint of Vietnam in the design or the finish. They have avoided the cliched images of girls in ao dai and there is not a lacquer vessel in sight. Maybe there is a Novotel template of room design. The shiny chrome reading lamps are a classy touch by the bedside, which is a couple of steps up on a mezzanine of sorts. This creates a sense of spaciousness, with desk space for laptops, glasses for the main drinking occasions, sofa and the balcony and outdoor setting down below.

And don't forget the sea, which really is the star feature of the room!

Outside of the room, there is lots to enjoy, including a pool, fitness centre and massage service; all quite typical I guess for regular guests at the Novotel and other high-end hotels. My outside of the room experience was spent mostly with friends and family at the local eateries but I did enjoy a beer at the hotel's main restaurant, The Square, which almost feels as if it is located on the beach.

Indeed, the sea seems to be the recurring theme at the Novotel Nha Trang.
Novotel Nha Trang Hotel
50 Tran Phu Street
Telephone:(+84)58/6256900

Nha Trang, June 09

The Sea Festival is one of the biggest events in Nha Trang which happens every two years. It's a really big time and attracts a lot of visitors to Nha Trang. Most hotels put their prices up unbelievely high. That's not the only thing that's high. The weather is a bit too hot for me, hot enough to burn my feet as I walked along the beach. While I was there last week, it was about 37 degrees everyday but luckily there is a sea breeze so that it's not too bad.

My brother's family and I went to the evening fair one night to have a look. It is right on the beach with numerous stalls and activities. The noise are from all the different speakers around with different music, sale girls voices, together with the crowds made it a bit tiring for me. I lost interest after 30 minutes wandering around the fair. I don't think I'll go to these fairs anymore as it's so boring and most of the stuff on sale is old fashioned and ugly.

I missed trying a bowl from the biggest noodle soup show during the festival. This is the first time and a record for Viet Nam for a single shop making a huge pot of pho, enough to serve almost 700 people. Pho Hong is one of the popular noodle shops in Nha Trang. There were also plenty of exhibitions on the beach especially painting and photography shows. I spent over an hour looking at the paintings, which were indeed great stuff.

During the day, I went to the Lousiane Brewhouse for swimming and relaxing, drinking some house-brewed beer and reading a bit. I started trying to read more in English last month and it has opened up my mind heaps, a new world for me and for my imagination.

As usual, I went to eat all of my hometown's local specialties for breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper. I just love these dishes and am amazed that they are so cheap. The most expensive dish I had was only 25,000Vnd, which is the same as what I pay for a bowl of noodles in Hanoi or Saigon. I will write about these dishes in the next post. Hope everyone is having a great weekend !!!

Ugly Betty

This is one of the ugliest monument I've ever seen in my life. It's located in the best location in the beautiful city of Nha Trang. I wonder where all the best architects are? Tell me what do you think.

Nha Trang 2009

I went back to Nha Trang earlier than usual this year to escape the damn Hanoi cold and to greet the beautiful sunshine in Nha Trang.

I always enjoy the sun here at this time of the year as it's not very hot and quite dry. I can already feel the difference in my breathing and my hair even feels healthier. The quality of the air in Nha Trang is very clean compared to Hanoi and a welcome break from all of the traffic chaos and noise. I love coming back as I can visit my family, good friends and eat my favorite foods.

My good friends from Hanoi are coming down this weekend and they will stay for a week for Tet. For some of them it is the first time and the rest of them not. For my closest friend, it is his sixth time! The main reason they come is to relax, lay on the beach, read and enjoy the seafood and streetfood. At some beaches in Vietnam, the vendors can be quite annoying but in Nha Trang they can be avoided. Well, I am off now to the beach now.

It's a hard life!

Back Packing in Nha Trang

Nha Trang has long been a popular destination for both local and international tourists. Its long sandy beach lined with coconut palms is the stand out attraction of this large coastal city located on Vietnam’s south central coast. Entire days can quite easily be whiled away relaxing in the sun, chasing a tan, recovering from a hangover or simply de-stressing. In fact, a beach city like Nha Trang can be a very therapeutic place.

It is tourist friendly. In Hanoi, the tourist patch is the Old Quarter. In Saigon, it is district 1 and the strip along Pham Ngu Lao. In these areas, many of the local folk can speak English reasonably well. This makes information about tourist services, onward journeys and local places of interest easy to obtain. Nha Trang also has it’s traveler’s zone, where boat trips can be booked, motorbikes can be rented, flights and onward bus and train journeys arranged and all manner of western and international cuisine ordered and enjoyed. Located along and parallel to a few blocks of beachfront, the place to stay in Nha Trang is in the small district known as Biet Thu. Mini-hotels and guesthouses abound in this area and the beach is never more than a five minute walk away. More up-market accommodation in high rise hotels is available further up the beach road if you don’t mind a long walk or a taxi ride at the end of the night.

A night spent in one or more of Nha Trang’s great bars! The jewels in the crown of the bar scene here are the Nha Trang Sailing Club and the Louisiane Brew house, two long established watering holes right on the beach. The former is a stunning complex of restaurants, bar and nightclub, where drinks after a hard day on the beach can be followed by a meal and some jiving on the dance floor. For many, it is the last stop of the night. The latter is a beer lover’s paradise, open all day but not so late into the night. Four different beers are brewed on the premises and can be enjoyed on the brew house’s waterfront beach lounges or by the pool. Away from the beach, Crazy Kim’s, Guava, Shorty’s and the Why Not Bar all have their own unique atmospheres.

Eating options in Nha Trang are various. Indian, Italian, Japanese and other international cuisines are pretty well represented here. But, by the seaside, the choice is obvious. Prawns, squid, lobster and fish are on display outside restaurants throughout the tourist area. Customers can select exactly the creature they want to dine on and watch it flipped onto the barbeque. However, better seafood experiences can be had where the locals eat. One such place is Bien Tien Hai San, a restaurant about three kilometers along the main beach road north of town. In fact, there are many seafood eateries out this way which are worth a visit. Other local specialties, available away from the tourist strip in the streets around the main market, include fried rice-flour pancakes (banh xeo), fish noodle soup (bun ca) and fresh roll-your-own spring rolls (nem nuong). Going hungry in Nha Trang is not even remotely possible.

Apart from the above-mentioned sedentary activities of sunbathing, drinking and eating, Nha Trang does have a few more active pursuits on offer. Diving is big here, with a few operators competing for underwater business. All day boat trips to the surrounding islands, with frequent stops for swimming and snorkeling are also popular with the young backpacker crowd. The Cham Towers across the river are also worth a visit if history and architecture are of any interest.

Despite all of the possibilities, whenever I go back to Nha Trang I find myself gravitating toward the beach by day, the street food and seafood at meal times and the bars by night.

It’s a routine I thoroughly recommend!

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

Nha Trang - Happy New Year 2008!!!

Chinese New Year in Viet Nam is called Tet. All over Vietnam, Tet is the family reunion time where everyone is supposed to return home for a few days. That includes me. I went back home for two weeks to be with my mother and my sisters and brother. Back in Nha Trang for two weeks isn't really enough as I couldn't try as much local food as I would like but at least I had such a great time with family and good friends.

My family and I chose the Sailing Club to welcome the new year. This is a really beautiful bar right on the beach BUT it is a bit of a rip off place as well for beer as it's almost double price compared to other places in town. They have really good music, a great location right on the beach and everyone seemed to come here on New Years Eve for a drink or two and to see the fireworks. They also charged a $4 entrance fee that you can exchange for a small bottle of beer, soft drink or an awful jar of cocktail. Anyway, we had a great new years eve and I was a bit drunk at the end.

My mother was preparing lots of food at home waiting for us to return home. In Vietnam, it's very important that the first person to enter the home after the new year is someone who will bring the family good luck for the coming year. It also depends on that person's year of birth and normally the family choose. With my family, I am usually the first person every year because I always come home earlier than other people but not this year as my brother came home first. I hope we will have the greatest year this year.

Happy New Year everyone and best wishes for the coming year. Welcome to 2008, the year of the Rat!!!