THE JAHAN
REMINISCENCE OF IMPERIAL INDIA

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Reportedly built by King Po Kathit of the Kramuka lineage (the Areca clan), the ancient citadel of Bal Hanön was the last capital-citadel of the Cham and one of the first capitals of Panduranga, the southernmost Cham kingdom that today occupies the center of Binh Thuan province in southern Vietnam. In the 11th century, the historical chronicles and legends of the Cham designated Panduranga as the origin of Champa, an ancient capital of kings whose dynasties took on the emblematic name of the Areca with Bal Hanön as its capital-citadel. Depending on the period, the sites of the Paduranga capitals vary and remain sources of controversy. In 1835, the last one was located at the Bal Canar de Parik, the current port of Phan Ri, 25 kilometers northeast of Bal Hanön.

Bal Hanön is perched on a curve of the Song Luy River, in the centre of a semi-arid coastal peneplain that was once covered with cactus thickets and light forests where elephants, tigers and rhinos roamed. It is dominated to the west, southwest and north by the steep seafront of the Annamitic Cordillera mountain range, an array of misty peaks that were once the land of Raglan and Churu allies. To the east, it is bordered by the majestic Ihul Pron, the basin of the great White Sand Dunes that overlook the coast and the ancient port of Phan Ri.

Unfortified in the early days, Bal Hanön eventually acquired a wall 1,000 meters wide and about 1,500 meters long. The wall is made up of powerful embankments lined with limonite, reinforced in places by piles of rocks rolled from the nearby river where were plentiful. It is studded with solid wooden doors and reinforced with belfries. After the fall of the Paduranga, the city was destroyed and became known as the Song Luy fortress

             

THE STRANGE LIFE OF HOANG THI THE 
THE CHILD OF CONFLICT 5

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In 1901, Hoang Thi The was born in a tumultuous time, to Hoang Hoa Tham, also known as Đề Thám, a Vietnamese national hero (or notorious rebel leader, history would argue) who led the longest anti-French movement in Vietnam (1884-1913). Her lineage of resistance ensured she would live an extraordinary life.

At the age of nine, The found herself arrested by the French army separated from her family and her childhood shattered by political conflict. The was then placed in the care of different French and Vietnamese officials in Tonkin, who made sure she was on strict surveillance, learned French and received a Catholic education, which continued in Bayonne, southwestern France.

Hoang Thi The was in her mid-twenties, receiving a first-rate French education, with a certain lack of commitment to any political ideologies. The adopted daughter of Paul Doumer, former Governor-General of Indochina and French President at the time, received a generous monthly allowance of 2,500 francs, quickly acquired the taste of luxury in Paris.

In the French capital, where the presence of Vietnamese working classes was increasing, fueling Paris with various ideological interests, Hoang Thi The’s private life was political as it was romantic, with multiple suitors approaching her for status and political gains. She was having the time of her life, as the daughter of a controversial figure, and enjoying the admiration not only from her countrymen but also Albert Sarraut, the Governor-General of French Indochina. She grew more supportive of the French administration,
 

THE THREATENED, MARVELOUS 
ASIAN BLACK BEAR 5

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who provided her with a generous stipend every month, gradually causing the Vietnamese community to shun her, thinking she was sided with the enemy. As Hoang Thi The’s ties to the Vietnamese community in France wore thin, she found an opportunity to reinvent herself in an attempt to shed her shadow as De Tham’s daughter: stardom on the silver screen. In an interview for her debut, “La Lettre”, she self-introduced as a princess, a descendent of Chinese emperors, entirely leaving out the famous father figure from her newly invented persona. This attempt for a new marvelous life fantasy did not go unnoticed by the Vietnamese community in France and worsened her relationship with her countrymen.

A few years after a splendid wedding with a wealthy French man and surveillance on her life lessened, her stipend got halved and finally ended by the colonial administration in 1940. However, this was the the same year her marriage ended with her losing custody of her child. Hoang Thi The became a destitute woman, with one account witnessing her reading palms on the streets in Southwest France in 1945, ‘not enjoying all of her mental faculties’. In 1959, it was alleged that she turned down an offer from the president of South Vietnam to return to Vietnam. Her later life was spent quietly in North Vietnam, at peace.

Secret Indochina offers various immersive war tours, offering a new perspective in understanding the conflicts and the resulting traumas in the Indochinese Peninsula region, while discovering the beauty of its landscape and people beyond the context of war