Luang Prabang is a fascinating city with an exceptional heritage. After a thousand years of history and various foreign occupations, the city today harmoniously merges traditional Laotian architecture and European colonial style. Nestled in a green peninsula at the convergence of the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers, strategically placed along the legendary Silk Road, Luang Prabang was for centuries the ancient capital of the independent kingdom of Lan Xang – the kingdom of the million elephants – and a high symbol of Buddhism in Laos. After years of conflict related to the Indochinese wars and the disappearance of its king in 1975, Luang Prabang had become a slowly dying, ruined ghost town. Its fortunes changed when it opened to tourism in 1990 and after UNESCO inscribed it onto the World Heritage List in 1995. This recognition was partly due to Francis Engelmann, a curious enthusiast who fell in love with Luang Prabang and whose personal story helps us better to understand the fascinating secrets of the ancient royal capital.

Engelmann began his career in the 1970s as an urban planner in a design office close to social housing organizations in Paris. Intrigued by the communist wave that flooded Southeast Asia, he became interested in the history of refugees who entered France forced to flee their home countries. He spent 15 years traveling through the Indochinese peninsula and Indonesia, where his curiosity for Asian culture grew. In 1991, he moved to Vientiane, Laos for six years to create the National School of Administration and Management as part of a cooperation project with France. At the same time, the Laotian government asked him to register Luang Prabang as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, marking the beginning of a restoration of its heritage and of economic development. In the city, hundreds of buildings were identified by architectural interest and protected from destruction. This classification allowed the city center – a diamond in the rough marked by the ravages of time – to rediscover its noble status.

After spending time in France honing his professional skills and expressing his passion for history and Indochina through writing, Engelmann returned to Asia in 2002 when UNESCO invited him to become involved in an Asia Urbs project on managing the public space of Luang Prabang for the socio-economic development of the local population. This European Union-funded program aims to defuse the emerging conflict between ethnic Tai traders (an ethnolinguistic family that includes Lao, Siamese from Thailand, and Shan from Burma) and the newly arrived Hmông, who were trading in Luang Prabang’s Marché de la Poste, the former Place d’Armes. Together with partners, Engelmann worked to raise awareness among the local population, who were unfamiliar with the city’s local culture. The initiative was a success; merchants from various ethnic groups began treating each other with respect, and the ethnic market took its current name of “Craft Market” in a city that is increasingly multicultural.

This knack for bringing people together through interaction and access to knowledge, combined with his eclectic spirit and thirst for understanding and sharing, led Engelmann to consult numerous local micro-development projects. They included a training program for seamstresses, the safeguarding of village cultural and musical traditions as well as “The Quiet in The Land Luang Prabang”, an art and education project implemented with Luang Prabang’s provincial department of information and culture and American foundations which introduced Engelmann to the world of Contemporary art. From 2007 to 2009, he also served as vice-president of an association dedicated to preserving the intangible heritage of Luang Prabang.

In addition to architecture, Engelmann’s insatiable curiosity led him to specialize in art history, botany, and Buddhism. He takes pleasure in sharing his knowledge through numerous books and publications on Laos and Southeast Asia, as well as through conferences and private cultural walks among the golden pagodas, ancient houses, and gardens of this jewel city, which has become a source of national pride

 

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In this edition, we return to Thong Nong, one of our favorite mountain ranges in Vietnam. Isolated since colonial times and, until recently, virtually inaccessible, Thong Nong is one of northeast Vietnam’s last frontiers.

Located in the northwestern part of Cao Bang province, Thong Nong is a southern branch of the huge limestone massifs that run from central Yunnan to the Himalayas. The rectangular-shaped range extends about 40 km on a north-southeast axis between China and Vietnam. Its northwestern face dominates the upper Song Gam gorges, while the northern face – three quarters of which is in China – forms a steep rectangular base. The western side overlooks hills and schistose ridges undulating gently towards the Bao Lac district, and the steep eastern flanks face the Mo Xat massif, overlooking the Tse Lao River valley. The equally steep southern slope dominates Tinh Tuc and the nearby Pia Oac (1,911m).

Thong Nong is made up of a chaotic set of innumerable limestone peaks and summits, interspersed with small valleys and wooded basins. Its highest point is Mount Nam Giam (1,724m), and its main peaks are the Nui Dinh Deng (1,517 m), the Mi Luong (1,456m), the Lung Tay Dum (1,245m), the Nui Co Pec (1,478m) and towards the south, the Nui Nguom Puc (1,367m). A series of small valleys meander towards the heart of the massif under Mount Mi Luong and above the hamlet of Coc Phat. To the northwest near the upper Song Gam gorges, lies the high green valley of Dong Mu, while streams such as the Song Niao flow down from its heights to feed the Song Gam and the Tse Lao.

Pockets of dense forest grow in the center of the massif, dipterocarpus alatus, lythraceaes, giant ban-ban palms-tree, and giant ferns develop there. In its depths survive monkeys, pythons molures (Python molurus) and rare birds; still a decade ago, it’s common to meet panthers (Neofelis nebulosa) and Tibet bears (Ursus thibetanus). The wandering presence of the latter explains the fact that some hamlets are fenced in order to protect themselves from night visits, the ursids being attracted by the deposits of corn stored in the house’s silos.

In ancient times, Thong Nong was populated by Mon-Khmer groups (probably Khmu), and around the 10th century the Nung and Tho (Tay) people settled in the valleys of the massif. About two hundred years ago, the Hmong, Dao, and Lolo immigrated from China and settled on the summits and counterslopes.

The Hmong cultivate banana trees, corn, hemp, legumes, and sometimes poppies. They also practice slash-and-burn cultivation, and the still-hot smoke from their plots sometimes blocks the horizon. They raise a breed of mountain pigs similar to wild boars, with short legs, a belly that drags on the ground, and a black or black-spotted gray coat. Some families own lean oxen that look like zebus, others raise native buffalo. The Hmong are animists, they believe that the mountains, forests, and rivers house more-or-less benevolent genies. 
                                                                      
The Thong Nong Hmong huts are built on the ground with planks, with the older ones out of clay. Usually, the huts are divided into two parts: the main house made up of two or three alcoves, a large smoky room, and granaries with piles of dried corn; and the annex hut, or a covered terrace used as a kitchen, with a smoky terracotta oven to cook food. Some houses are dilapidated and cluttered.

In valleys or basins, at the foot of the limestone peaks, the Tay and Nung practice irrigated rice cultivation and have become masters in the development of rice terraces. The villages are part of the communes of Yen Son and Ngoc Dong, Thong Nong district. Recently, a few stony roads have been built to “open up” the massif and its residents. The northern and central parts remain remote, however, with only a few paths connecting hamlets and isolated houses under the summits, where families are almost totally self-sufficient.

The Hmong trails weave their way between basins and cliffs, avoiding twists and turns to climb the slopes almost vertically. North Vietnamese tracks and roads are traditionally traced on ridge lines, a practice that is common among diverse civilizations, including Persia and Tawantinsuyu. The idea is to avoid the bottom of valleys, which are often unhealthy, covered with impenetrable vegetation and marshes, favorable to ambushes, and frequently blocked by rockslides and landslides in the rainy season.

The northern part of the RN4, the former Colonial Road 4, winds along the southern flanks of the massif, and its northern facade is partially in China – giving the massif a strategic element. Between 1920 and 1950, the French army built a series of tracks and bridges on its foothills and another leading towards the center and Mount Mi Luong. According to the locals, a mountain airport was built there with a small runway for reconnaissance aircraft. The runway was protected by a post, which was attacked by the Vietminh in 1950 and the small garrison starved.

In January 1979, Chinese divisions rushed through the Tse Lao valley into North Vietnam. The peoples took refuge in Thong Nong center, where they hid for several months. The Chinese, realizing that their frontal assault technique was ineffective, faced logistical problems and were ultimately overcome by Vietnamese soldiers hardened through decades of war. The front stabilized, and the Chinese eventually withdrew, implementing a scorched-earth policy in the process.

Secret Indochina organized various missions in Thong Nong between 2007 and 2020. The first were almost diplomatic; some Hmong hamlets in the heart of the area have not had contact with Westerners since 1950, and the people believe the unexpected appearance of a foreigner is linked to the appearance of a genie. After several missions, Secret Indochina was able to develop a micro-economy linked to tourism. In parallel, we generated the Thong Nong Project, which aims to improve local conditions, notably through the renovation or construction of Hmong houses