July 2022

JULY 2022

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Neverland de Papillons - an ode to lightness
The splendors of Phu Xieng Thong, a southern Laotian massif

NEVERLAND DE PAPILLONS

AN ODE TO LIGHTNESS

Sa Dec, nicknamed the “Garden of Cochinchina” in colonial times, is a sleepy town interwoven with terroir and romance.

Located in the province of Dong Thap along a small branch of the Mekong River, this small town with its quiet alleys bears witness to a past splendor through its stone heritage littered with old Chinese and French villas, temples, and pagodas. Around Sa Dec stretches a vast landscape of mirrored rice fields continuously showered by meandering arroyos or rach (canals), surrounded by nurseries, orchards, fields of flowers, and areca trees erecting their frail feathers above twisted coconut trees. The country is renowned for the quality of its land, the affluence of its inhabitants, and the skill of its craftsmen in husking, sawing, and making bricks, soap, mats, and jewelry.

Formerly a Khmer country, the site was annexed to the Cochinchinese dependencies of the Lords of Hué in 1731. The fortified post of Dong Khâu Dao was built there, eventually becoming one of the most influential cities of the Mekong Delta at the time.
More recently, in addition to being the birthplace of the French comic strip author Loÿs Pétillot, Sa Dec has gained an international reputation thanks to the work of Marguerite Duras and her novel L'Amant, which received the Goncourt Prize in 1984 and was made into a film by Jean-Jacques Annaud in 1992. The story recounts a romance that began in the summer of 1929 during the crossing of a branch of the Mekong River by ferry, when Ms. Duras – then a young high school student – was visiting her mother, who was director of a school for girls. On this journey she met her future lover Huynh Thuy Le, 27, beginning a relationship that would leave an indelible mark on the novelist.

This watery universe, draped in color and imbued with poetry, also spawned another personal story, that of Quynh Anh, a florist who heals herself with bouquets. A former advertising executive who works long hours, Quynh Anh likes to relax by mingling with the scent of roses, lilies, orchids or chrysanthemums that envelop the aisles of the Ho Thi Ky flower market in Saigon. These nocturnal strolls gradually take on the appearance of active meditation with rejuvenating effects. This ephemeral happiness, which she transmits to her friends via her floral compositions sent in the early morning, unconsciously heals her spirit in search of appeasement. She first practices the beneficial therapy with her entourage, then opens a flower shop, Padma de Fleur, in Saigon. Through this shop focused on emotion and balance between East and West, Quynh Anh seeks to move the hearts of her customers.

This concept of care through nature finally takes a more holistic form when Quynh Anh decides to build Neverland de Papillons, a flowery oasis in the middle of Sa Dec's countryside. This charming five-room establishment, with its rustic decoration blending modernity and stylized touches like its owner, harmoniously stands out from a grid of rice fields and food crops cut by small canals with sleepy yards. Its structure, topped with thatched roofs pointing to the sky like conical hats, melodiously blends with its garden shaded with the colors of bougainvillea, gardenias, desert sage, and Morgana orpins, among others.

This rural interlude is an invitation to rejuvenation and introspection, allowing one to question the multi-dimensional aspect of life through the symbolism of flowers. From the languid base of Neverland de Papillons, visitors can enjoy bouquets made from locally picked flowers, visit an old brick factory still in operation, see the former residence of Ms. Duras’ lover and the exterior of her mother’s school, marvel at a workshop of master basket makers, or wander through the fields of the horticulturists of Tan Quy Dong, who still maintain the reputation of this capital of the flowers of the South

© Illustration credit: Jean Plout

THE SPLENDORS OF PHU XIENG THONG

A SOUTHERN LAOTIEN MASSIF

To mark the reopening of Laos, Secret Indochina visits Phu Xieng Thong, a little-known mountain range in south-central Indochina distinguished by its geographical peculiarities, wild nature, and strange petroglyphs.

Phu Xieng Thong (Phu Sieng Thong) is located between Salavan and Champassak provinces in southern Laos and along the Ubon Ratchathani province in southeastern Isarn. The Phu Xieng Thong forms an almost perfect half-moon shape, with a deep furrow in its center created by the southeastern flow of the majestic Mekong River that also provides an arduous passage through the heart of the range.

In its eastern Laotian part, the range forms a semicircle whose eastern edge consists of a sharp ridge line bordered by bushy cliffs plunging towards the Nam Xuac and Xe Don river basins. Towards the center and northeast of the Mekong, wooded valleys and sandstone heights are crowned by small, rounded plateaus, including Phu Thong Ton (319m), Phu Ba Bi (287m), Phu Mak Than (484m) and Phu Khao Hem (485m, with its characteristic pyramid shape). Hills appear here and there, with unearthly conical shapes, cliffs, small arid plateaus, and rock formations carved by the wind and the monsoons.

On its Thai side, the range is dominated by the Phu Put (435m) and Phu Kachieo (458m), ringed by eroded sandstone mounts in the shape of giant mushrooms, steep valleys, and reddish cliffs overlooking the Mekong gorges. The area is covered by the Nam Taem (Dong Natham) and Kaeng Ta Na national parks. Vestiges of curious rock art remain, such as petroglyphs with animal or humanoid forms dating from around 3000 BC, made by an enigmatic proto-Indochinese civilization whose influence extended east of the current Isarn plateau in the south and northeast of Laos, up to the indecipherable, engraved Sapa stones.

In 1958, Phu Xieng Thong’s Laotian part was classified as a forest reserve. It is dominated by a semi-dry evergreen forest with an uneven distribution of Dipterocarpus, mixed, deciduous or bamboo forests. Sixteen species of mammals, 188 birds, and 11 reptiles have been recorded in the reserve, the most notable are the Sumatran antelope (Capricornis sumatraensis), the Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus), the leopard (Panthera pardus delacouri), the pangolin (Manis), the varan (Varanus varius), and the banteng (Bos javanicus).

Phu Xieng Thong’s far southeast area is dominated by the Phu Nangam (716m, the range’s highest point), a peak extended by cliffs that plunge into the Xe Don basin. In the far southwest, the Mekong forms another majestic loop at the foot of the Phu Sati (414m) and Phu Lassi (674m), mountains that gradually melt into whitish cliffs.

Between 1965 and 1975, the Americans and the royalist army maintained various secret bases in Phu Xieng Thong, including a LS (Lima Site) with a two-kilometer runway and a secret CIA hospital in the southern part of the range (Kang Heuan). The site was used as a maquis by anti-communist forces until the late 1980s. The former CIA base is located south of Phu Sati, not far above the banks of the Mekong. The base is large, and in addition to a runway and hospital, also features ruined barracks, collapsed bunkers, and a gathering place with a rusty statue of a roaring lion. There are also sandy trenches where all kinds of ammunition can be found, remnants of attacks carried out by the North Vietnamese army on the base in 1975. Today, nature has reclaimed its rights there, and a forest is slowly covering the base’s remains.

Secret Indochina organizes various discovery modules in Phu Xieng Thong, especially in its southern part with hikes overlooking the majestic Mekong

© Photo credit: Adthaporn Saconyen

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