After two days of negotiation, the soldiers took the bribes and let them go. Later, they encountered merchant sailors who were willing to supply them with some oil and food from their own ship stock, but who refused to rescue them. As they journeyed on, they were attacked by a Thai pirate ship that tried to rob them, only to find that the passengers had nothing left to steal. The pirates then informed the crew that the boat was going the wrong way. Recharting their course, the vessel slowly made its way to the shores of Thailand. The exhausted and starving passengers and crew were sent to the Songkhla Refugee Camp.

While Pham waited in the refugee camp to be processed and resettled in a third country, he took every opportunity he had to create and capture his traumatic experience through his art. Conditions in the Songkhla Refugee Camp were extremely cramped and inadequate for the population of boat people it sheltered. Pham lived under a tree in a hammock and stayed in the camp from February to early June. When the opportunity arose for him to apply for permanent asylum, he chose Canada. In June 1980, Pharn arrived in Canada under the government-sponsored category. Pham and his brother left Bangkok and flew to Montreal, and then to London, Ontario. From London they were driven to Stratford by the Canadian family that sponsored them, John and Grace Gilbert.

While living in Stratford, Pham also received a great deal of support from local Canadians and the church he attended. In 1982, he decided to relocate to Toronto in hopes of finding work and joining the Vietnamese community. He received assistance from the Vietnamese Association of Toronto and caring Torontonians who were total strangers to him. Pham started his first job in Georgetown as an assistant in finishing art products.

In 1983, Pham was able to reconnect with his girlfriend, Thai, who by then had fled to France with her family. In 1984, he flew to Paris to marry her, and they both decided to build their new home in Toronto. The couple's romance is unique and is a wartime love story. Their love for each other has outlived physical separation of thousands of miles and limited communication. Thai tried to escape by boat three times, but failed. Her brother eventually sponsored her to go to France in 1983. Once in Paris, she wrote to Pham who called her and proposed.

Thai, who majored in biology at Saigon University, originally intended to pursue her studies in the medical field. Under the communist regime in Vietnam, she had also been trained in fashion design and traditional craft work. After her arrival in Toronto, Thai worked as a sewing operator for a fashion manufacturer during the day and did her own fashion design work in the evening to make ends meet. She also wanted to save enough money to sponsor the rest of her family to come to Canada. Both Pham and Thai worked extremely hard to support themselves and the rest of their family.

In 1986, Thai was able to reunite with her parents. In the same year that their first child, Daniel (Hieu), was born, Thai started her own fashion design boutique.

After working for an art foundry industry for several years, Pham opened his own custom plaster studio. He produces and designs a variety of things, such as cornices, panel mouldings, ceiling decorations, and elaborate murals. In May 1993, Pham competed with international artists and was commissioned to do a bronze statue entitled, "Escaped to Freedom." This project is co-sponsored by the Vietnamese Federation Association in Canada (Capital Region) and the City of Ottawa. This bronze statue is expected to be completed in 1994 and will be located at Preston Avenue and Somerset Road in Ottawa.

To this day, Pham still has the only possession from his old life that he was able to save - a leather artist's satchel on which he printed in white letters his refugee identification number from the Songkhla Refugee Camp. He keeps the satchel in order to bequeath it eventually to his son, Hieu, so that he will not forget the great danger and sacrifices his father endured in seeking freedom and a new life.

In May 1993, after this interview, the Phams had their second child, David (Hai).