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Vietnam Indochina Tours
About Us |
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The People
Though Vietnam-Indochina Tours officially began business in December of 1994, in a sense it began its life more than twenty-five years earlier in the jungles, swamps and rice paddies of Ben Tre
Province in the Mekong Delta, in December 1968, when twenty-year-old Second Lieutenant Courtney Frobenius joined Bravo Company, 3/60th Infantry, 2nd Brigade, 9th Infantry Division as an infantry
platoon leader. The next six months were to irrevocably and fundamentally change both him and leave indelible memories etched in his soul; memories not just of war and its infamies, but memories of a
land and a people so beautiful and so different than his own that a lifelong curiosity of the intellect ensued. |
| Courtney was wounded on 20 June 1969 and evacuated to Japan for three-months after which he returned to the United States. One-year later, now a captain,
he returned to Vietnam in September of 1970 and again served in infantry capacities in the Mekong Delta, Cambodia and on the Central Coastal Littoral in Phu Yen Province. In September of
1971, after five-years in the Army, at the age of twenty-three, he requested and received an honorable discharge and re-joined the now radically changed world which he left five-years
earlier in 1966; but Vietnam did not leave him. |
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He continued to study both Vietnam and Asia until he decided to return to Vietnam for a visit in March of 1994.
More visits followed until the company was formed in December of 1994 and Courtney departed for a three-year journey to Vietnam to develop the Vietnam-infrastructure of the company and to travel to
every province of Vietnam--both north and south--as well as to Cambodia and Laos. It was during this time that he met Trang My Tran, a high school English teacher. They were married in a Vietnamese
ceremony on the banks of the Saigon River on 25 March of 1997.
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Trang was born in 1964 in Saigon and lived in the Mekong Delta in Soc Trang and Long An Provinces and in Saigon where her father served with the South
Vietnamese Army as an English interpreter. After the war she completed high school and went on the University and became a high school Russian teacher. With the implementation of the Doi Moi
(renewal) policy in 1987 she began to study English. Since the time they met in 1996, Trang and Courtney have been an inseparable team. In June of 1998, having completed the development of
the company's infrastructure in Indochina, Courtney returned to Seattle. Trang followed on 21 November 1998. They now reside in Olympia, Washington and form the nucleus of the
Vietnam-Indochina Tours team. |
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What We Do
Vietnam-Indochina Tours offers top-of-the-market, customized tours to Indochina at moderate prices; our tours have value because all our customers receive a high quality, purely custom tour at a
moderate price.
We are a tour operator, not a travel agency; this means that you are dealing direct with the people who provide the actual services and not through a 'broker' who is selling someone else's tour. This
also means that you pay substantially less for the same tour. Our market is the discerning traveler who wants a custom tour, personalized service and a high quality product. Many of our clients are
well traveled: former ambassadors, retired generals, business people, policemen, doctors, real estate brokers. . . virtually all types and kinds of people, comprise our clients, but they all have one
thing in common: they don't want to be 'packed on the bus.' They want to go where they want to go, do what they want to do and have the travel experience they desire; they don't want the typical tour
of an endless array of temples and monuments but a true travel experience.
We are experts in Indochina. We are thoroughly informed as to the conditions, customs and destinations in Indochina. All our American staff has lived and extensively traveled in Indochina for a
minimum of five or more years each. You are talking to people who know a great deal more than where Indochina is located on the map. We have answers to your questions, not the words, "We'll try and
find something out about that . . . .
Finally, we care about every person and every tour we do; we try our very best for you. This is who we are. This is what we have been doing since December 1994.
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The Washington Post
28 May 2000, Page E-9
As a measure of our success in our chosen areas (quality), the Washington Post on 28 May 2000, page E-9, recommended us, along with Abercrombie and Kent, as the Expert Tour Operators fd by the
Vietnamese Embassy on their web-page. |
Lonely Planet
Vietnam Guide Book
The Lonely Planet, March 1999 edition, page 163, Vietnam guide book, lists us as one-of-eight recommended tour operators from the United Stated for Vietnam. The Lonely Planet guide books are the most
widely read and sold guidebooks in the world. |
Vietnamese Embassy
Washington, D.C.
We are one of the three-listed tour operators provided by the Vietnamese Embassy.
1233 20th St. NW, Suite 400 - Washington, DC 20036
202.861.0737 - fax 202.861.0917
info@vietnamembassy-usa.org
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