Text by: Anita Preston
Photos by: Anita Preston / Evensong Film

Born in Saigon in 1914 the clever, feisty, and precocious Marguerite Duras was the youngest child of teachers from rural France. Her story was immortalized in the Goncourt prize-winning autobiography L’Amant (The Lover) and later made into a movie. In the book, a young lady’s family turns a blind eye to her relationship with an older wealthy Chinese man simply because they are interested in his money.  Marguerite’s life was not an easy one and she grew up in a dysfunctional family dealing with her widowed mother’s depression, an older brother addicted to opium, and a younger autistic brother.  

The town most closely connected with Marguerite is Sa Dec in the Mekong Delta. In The Lover, Marguerite famously meets her rich lover on a ferry when she travels from Sa Dec to Saigon to return to boarding school. Her mother taught at the local school, now the Trung Vuong Primary School. Shades of its colonial past are still visible in the shutters and red-tiled roofs. The house where they lived is now gone. 

Sa Dec is the flower capital of Vietnam. Its old market area goes on for blocks and is filled with buckets and beautiful fresh flowers of every shade and hue. Food sellers peddle bánh mì sandwiches made with crusty white baguettes, a legacy of the French. The aroma of thinly sliced pork chops grilling on charcoal braziers fills the air, marinated with lemongrass and fish sauce, and served with broken rice (cơm tấm). Massive fruits and a myriad of colorful vegetables line the stalls as the soil from the Mekong Delta is supercharged with nutrients. 

The house of the real-life lover, Huynh Thuy Le, with the “blue tiles” is next to the market. Delicate and colorful orchids and elegant bonsai fill the garden and in the house, the walls are lined with photos of him, not quite as suave and handsome as his movie counterpart, Tony Leung. The movie was filmed in Vietnam in 1992. Its scenes of the Mekong, the last remnants of colonial Saigon, and the languid backwaters of the Mekong Delta offer a glimpse back to when Vietnam had just opened up to the world and many of its colonial relics were still standing. 

The film could not use Huynh Thuy Le’s house because it was then a police station, as his family had relocated to

. The house is a mixture of Indochinese brick, Chinese teak, and gilding and has a sunken tiled floor built following the principles of Feng Shui. The rear of the house has a small gift shop selling all kinds of trinkets and of course the ubiquitous fedoras should you choose to replicate Marguerite’s look. 

Boats with good luck markings on the bow and massive barges driven by friendly captains who shout and wave “hello” still frequently chug up the river, their hulls piled high with rice husks to fuel the terracotta chimneys of nearby brick kilns. Sa Dec is still a thriving market town and the river is busy with commercial traffic. A picturesque iron bridge just north of the market area spans the river. The banks are lined with old colonial buildings in pastel hues of blue and yellow now converted into trendy coffee shops serving cà phê sữa, the delicious Vietnamese drip coffee with condensed milk. Facing the market are two small islands and on the other side of the islands the Mekong makes its mark, it is massive and wide here. Water hyacinths frequently bob and float on by in huge bunches on their way to the ocean 100 kilometers away. Huge bridges now cross the old ferry routes and Marguerite’s Sa Dec to Vinh Long ferry no longer exists. 

On the islands, you can easily spot houses used in the movie. When the Chinese protagonist goes to beg his father to marry Marguerite he crosses over in a boat from the current market to a tall blue house on the other bank. Nothing has changed except the color of the house, now yellow and also open for visitors. Exploring the two islands is interesting. Small narrow lanes crisscross the islands and there are many architectural gems to be found. The old hospital near the bus station in faded yellow is an old French colonial beauty. 

A few days in the Delta is highly recommended. It’s so lush and verdant and alive, it’s a tropical paradise. Much more laid back than the rest of Vietnam, life is slower and friendlier. Get used to strangers yelling “Hello, where you from?” as you go about your day. A short bus ride from Ho Chi Minh there are many equally picturesque towns across the Delta with the same historical backstories that you could easily spend weeks exploring.

Getting there:

Lao Airlines flies regularly from Vientiane to Ho Chi Minh City for travel onward overland to Sa Dec