IT’S 40 YEARS since the end of the Vietnam war – a conflict many of us probably know better from countless American war films than anything else.

It’s a truly stunning country, and one that Dublin photographer Ian Thuillier spent three months travelling around earlier this year with his girlfriend.

“I was in Cambodia two years ago and loved everything about it – the colours, the people, the food. I knew then that I wanted to get back to that part of the world, hence the Vietnam trip,” he told TheJournal.ie.

These three photos were all taken in the same region, known as Phong Nha, home to the longest water cave in the world

Travelling from Saigon in the south to Hanoi, and through all the villages in between, Thuillier saw a country that touched him deeply.

They’re an incredibly beautiful people, and very forgiving of the past. They don’t hold onto things like we do in the west.

Many elderly men and women perform Tai Chi early every morning by the lake of Hoan Kiem in Hanoi

Policeman with shoes in the town of Hoi An

Thuillier met survivors of the war, people who weren’t alive then but who exist day-to-day with the after-effects of the American bio weapon Agent Orange, and visited former battle sites transformed into beautiful landscapes.

It’s a country that’s still heavily mined so you can’t stray too far off the beaten path. There’s caves that were used as hospitals, munition dumps, bombs as tall as a man buried in the ground like art pieces.

The photos he took on his trip are compiled in a new book, ‘Vietnam: 40′ which has seen him shortlisted out of over 100,000 photographers worldwide for this year’s Sony World Photography Awards.

Ian will also hold his first exhibition on 10 December in Dublin.

Tuan was a young boy of 15 when he found a forgotten American bomb which exploded when he touched it. He now works for a Mine Action Group in Dong Ha

Luc and Nhi live around 50km from Hoi An in the mountains. They survived three separate landmine and bombing incidents. Luc is 45 now and his mother Nhi 83

An Indiegogo page to help fund the Vietnam:40 exhibition can be found here

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