Vietnam Photo Tour with QT Luong - October 2012

[QT Luong]

I will be co-leading a photo tour in Vietnam this summer, from July 11 to July 26 (four last days may be skipped). The tour will try to give a good taste of the variety of Vietnam by visiting the most quintessential sights of the country. I'll be available to answer any questions, with no aspect of photography off-limits.

Although I'd like to do so, I won't be shooting LF myself, so that I can be more available to participants. On the other hand, LF photographers are welcome. Since I know what it takes, I'll make sure you are not rushed - or you could take a vacation and just use a small camera :-). Not all sights will be suitable for LF, but some will definitively be. There will be plenty of landscape and architectural opportunities. Vietnam is also one of the places where it is easiest to get people to pose for a long time .

For details, see my Vietnam photo tour introduction and the link within to the tour operator page. Please note that there is currently an early booking discount, good through April.

[Jan Pedersen]

QT, This just sounds like a must do.
Unfortunately not able to pull it of this year but i hope it will be a sucess and that you will do something similar next year.
It would be a dream come tru to visit Vietnam.

[mdm]

Good luck. Sounds fun and very luxurious for the price.

[Curt]

As a Vietnam veteran I'd loved to go, my brother in law went back ten years ago and enjoyed it very much. Like Jan it's a bit soon to get in this year.

Curt

[tgtaylor]

I'd love to revisit Vietnam. I was stationed there in the late '60's as a young infantryman serving with B company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, Ist Cavalry Division, which afforded the opportunity of touring the country from Phan Thiet in Binh Thuan Province in the south to somewhere north of Bong Song in Binh Dinh Province in the north.

I was fortunate in being able to spend a little time in Saigon (now Ho Chi Ming City) where I happened to bump into a fellow New Orleanian. Learning that we were both from the same hometown we became instant best friends. This was a propitious encounter for for me for my friend had 24/7 access to a jeep (he drove the brass at HQ, USARV around), was fluent in Vietnamese, and knew the people. For a little over a year before I met him he had been AWOL from the military in Saigon during which time he mastered the language and culture of the people and made many lasting contacts among them.

One day he said to me “Let's go to Cholon. I want you to meet some of my friends.” The Cholon district of Saigon was off limits and we were warned that if we were to go there and ran into problems the MP's would not go in after you. You were on your own in Cholon. Knowing him and of his background I trusted him completely but, not to take any chances, grabbed a service 45. “You won't need that” he said looking at the pistol. But I took it anyway stashing it under the seat.

He was right. Pulling up to our destination, which was bar/club, he tapped the horn and out came two individuals who immediately recognized him and took the jeep and parked it out of sight in a garage. Inside we were graciously greeted by the owner and escorted to a front row table and brought a bottle of cognac, glasses, ice, and Coca Cola. No other westerners were in the house nor would they ever be permitted. We were treated to an evening of pure Vietnamese music sung by beautiful Vietnamese girls in traditional dress. It proved to be a very memorable evening for me which I will never forget and, try as I did, have never been able to find a better tasting Cognac.

About 90 miles NE of Saigon on the coast is Phan Thiet – a beautiful city situated on a spectacular beach on the South China Sea. It was during mid tour that my company was TDY (Temporary Duty Station) to Phan Thiet to guard the airfield. To us this was a welcomed break from the typical combat in the north. Contact with an enemy force was rarely encountered and we suffered not a signal causality during our thirty days of duty there. The only drawback was that the surrounding terrain was quite arid: no running streams like there were in the north which, in practical terms, meant that when on patrol, which usually lasted 2 - 4 days, you had to pack 4 canteens of water instead of the usual two.

Well one day near the beginning of our assignment in Phan Thiet – I can't remember if we were coning off of patrol or not - we were going to the beach. To swim! Now the Company Commander wasn't about to allow us to just run out to the beach as we were wanting to do but instead he marched us out calling cadence. The closer we got to the beach the faster our pace became and he adjusted the cadence to fit. But near the destination our pace quickened to an outright run and he gave up calling out the cadence.

Instead of hitting a ticket booth as you would here in the states, we hit tents under which were displayed ice cold Coca Cola and lettuce and tomato sandwiches on French bread with mayonnaise. And that's what I ran headlong into purveyed by a beautiful Vietnamese girl about my age (19) and slightly shorter. The sight of red-red tomatoes on a bed of lettuce and mayonnaise on real French bread and ice cold Coca Cola was irresistible. I looked into my wallet for the $10 in military script that I always carried but, yep, it had been picked by one of my “buddies.” I looked around for someone to borrow it from but the girl told me not to worry about it and handed me the sandwich and coke. I had a second of each and we became good friends.

We started dating. I would sneak off the airfield perimeter and meet her and her family in the village and we would often go swimming along the Beach. Initially I would bring my rifle with me but I became so comfortable with her, her family, and friends that I soon left it behind. One day we had a company meeting scheduled in a bunker at the airfield in which the CO was to brief us on what was upcoming. My antennae at the time was well attuned to what was coming down the pipe and I stood-up before the company and told everyone what the CO was going to say before the CO himself said it. Toward the end of my presentation there was some giggling and to my surprise the CO was standing in the doorway apparently having heard everything I had said. “Well you left out one thing Taylor,” he said, and then outlined that the Vietnamese Commander had reported to him that one of his soldiers, “Taylor,” has been seen leaving the compound without his weapon and dating one of the locals. Although this wasn't a direct accusative it was a warning about venturing alone in the village without my rifle.

Everything comes to its end and despite all of our good work in guarding the airfield and surrounding area we were ordered to join the regiment in the north. Everyone in the company had advance notice of the move except myself. I didn't know until I was on the helicopter. I guess they thought that I would run off AWOL. But I wouldn't have. I later discovered that Phan Thiet was the site of the first governorship of Ngo Dinh Diem and where Ho Chi Minh found his first employment as a school teacher.

I highly recommend visiting the Cholon district of Saigon and Phan Thiet if your itinerary permits.

Thomas

[J. E. Brown]

Sounds like a very nice tour.


Taylor - I really enjoyed reading your experiences. Thanks for sharing them (and your service).

[tgtaylor]

Thank you J.E. Brown.

Since my service days I have rarely reminisced about my experiences - most of which have been positive. This summer, however, I took temporary job with the State reaching out to recently discharged vets returning from Iraq or Afghanistan which resulted in my renewing contacts with people that I served with. I was floored when one day I saw an e-mail in my in-box from my old company commander in Vietnam. I hadn't saw or heard from him since April, 1967. Another, whom I thought had been killed in action turned up alive and well! He was just wounded.

I'm sure that there are other LF photographers that served. Feel free to drop me an E-mail. Who knows, maybe we can form a sub-group - vets with large cameras!

Thomas

[Shadowtracker]

Taylor, maybe it will end up being large vets with cameras....

But yes, thanks for that diversion - I enjoyed reading it. I have often thought about asking a vet friend of mine if he ever wanted to go back; maybe it would help some healing happen, but he might not need that anymore; he's worked on it diligently. But it was good to read about some of the positive that happened over there too. Thanks to you, and any other veteran that's here.

Having read about this tour, is planting some seeds for me. I won't be able to go this year, but it is something I can start to build into my budget. India is another place I would like to go to at least once in my life. It's posts like this that are pulling some other things together for me, keep them coming.

[QT Luong]

Here is an update.

There was not enough lead time with the previous announcement, and apprehension about the summer heat. Some thought it was too luxurious for a photo tour. We've addressed these concerns.

The tour has been rescheduled for October 2012. We have been able to significantly reduce the cost of the tour by (a) using 4-star hotels instead of 5-star hotels (b) having possibly only one tour leader (me) instead of the originally planned two.

http://insidersasia.com/tour/classic...s-a-photo-tour