Vietnam: nostalgia, inevitably nostalgia...

With a hint of ragtime, three notes of charleston, two steps of foxtrot and a jazzy trumpet; with those catchy tunes that have made The Roaring TwentiesWhen Saigon was sa-ï-gon-nait, the illusion would be perfect. Everything is there, intact or almost, starting with the municipal theatre, which has stood in its square since 1900, and above all, the terrace directly opposite, in this case that of the Hôtel Continental, one of the city's historic monuments. If it weren't for this incongruous covering - frog-green fake grass - everything would be immaculate: the tables, chairs, tablecloths and even the overhanging canopy that shelters customers from the monsoon rains and the killer tropical sun.

In fact, as the sepia-toned prints hanging on the walls of the entrance hall testify, true chic could only be imagined in the great white of colonial Indochina. White are the dresses of the ladies, white their capelines white suits and white hats. All the time. The whole ensemble was made from light cottons, sometimes silk, in any case fabrics and cuts that made it a little easier to withstand the mugginess of the city air, which fluctuates between 25 and 30° all year round. Which is obviously still the case.

"Ten thirty in the evening in summer", as the great Marguerite Duras once wrote. The catchphrase could work perfectly well today, especially on this terrace, which is packed this evening, with consumers forsaking the Byrrh, Dubonnet or Marie Brizard of yesteryear for a much more contemporary multicoloured cocktail, a champagne frappé, a chilled Chablis or, more simply, a Bia Saigon, a beer... local, inevitably local. And as the venue lends itself perfectly to meetings on the evening of plane arrivals, the guides and lecturers are happy to sketch out the broad outlines of a wonderfully nostalgic future trip.

We learn that, between the wars, it was a favourite haunt of world travellers, adventurers, artists, writers and journalists, including Malraux, who mentions it in his Antimémoires, as well as the great reporter Lucien Bodard and above all Graham Greene, who painted its setting in A quiet American. During the "American War", the Continental became the HQ for journalists and spies who nicknamed it Radio Catinat, after the street beside it. The street that used to be to Saigon what the Canebière is to Marseille, or the Champs-Élysées to Paris, was renamed Tu Do - meaning "freedom" - in 1954, then Dong Khai, the "street of the general uprising", in 1975.

The programme? Two busy days, enough to get away from the main sights of Vietnam's economic capital, as the historic district is not very extensive. So let's go for a city tour by minibus, a little slower than the speed of a horse as the traffic jams are terribly powerful at all hours. Nothing to do with traffic jams caused by too many cars, nor by refuse collectors working in the middle of the day, or even rude deliverymen. No, in Saigon, scooters are king. And even king of kings, since every morning eight million two-wheelers - Honda is more chic - set off to conquer the tarmac. Eight million for 11 million inhabitants!

At rush hour, in other words throughout the day in this hyper-active city, the flow is so compact that it practically acts as a wall. It's Dante and Hieronymus Bosch rolled into one, it's the inferno of an imaginary tsunami that would have pulverised the city. a real dam on the Pacific. But it's all orchestrated and policed, with everyone driving their machine, staring straight ahead. We move forward in a disciplined Asian fashion, front wheel against rear wheel, in a heady bolero of zonking scooters, masked in a vain attempt to escape the fine particles. All the same, there are a few light notes to brighten things up. These notes are the girls who, as if escaped from a pre-spring greenhouse, cover themselves from head to toe in floral prints. Botany is everywhere. On helmets, on anti-pollution masks, on anti-tanning gloves - tanning is frowned upon by elegant women - on hoodies and, while we're at it, on the sort of long skirts, real combat outfits that start at the young lady's waist and go all the way down to the tips of her very high heels.

And then there's what's carried on the luggage racks. Not one passenger as it should be, but two, or three, sometimes four, not counting the child, who sits delicately on the front of the scooter and is also covered in an anti-CO2 mask. We also carry everything and anythingFrom the most unlikely to the almost surreal. The result is a jumble of ordinary traffic: a fridge, a palm tree, battery chickens, cardboard boxes stacked sky-high, even a mountain of white flowers that should arrive on time - we wonder - on a wedding table.

A real postcard post office

Fortunately, to make it easier to get around, Saigon was built in the colonial style. In other words, a rectilinear plan cut by very wide avenues, probably too wide, lined with tamarind trees and generally leading to the Saigon River, where the great white liners used to dock. The whole is punctuated by large squares crushed by the heat, and on which stand the city's remarkable monuments.

Starting with Notre Dame Cathedral, a big, ugly red brick church built between 1877 and 1883 in a neo-Romanesque style. Its relative interest is actually overshadowed by the post office, a formidable "salle des pas perdus", still in its original state, with polychrome tiles on the floor, antique ticket offices, glass telephone booths and varnished wooden counters, chromos of old maps of Saigon and the Cholon district hung on the walls, with a vaulted glass roof designed by Gustave Eiffel, all watched over by a gigantic portrait of Hô Chi Minh which, it has to be said, is a bit of a prop. As a result, everyone will be treated to a volley of postcards sent in the old-fashioned way, with beautiful stamps and authentic postmarks, from one of the most glamorous post offices in the world. A real backdrop for fashion photos.

After a refreshing stop at the adjoining "café de la poste", we'll take the road to the markets, stopping in front of the town hall, built between 1900 and 1908, then another in front of what is now the Quy Dom secondary school, formerly Chasseloup-Laubat, which was attended in the 27-28 the young Marguerite Duras. It is still in use and, with its playground and tamarind trees, is reminiscent of the delightful and not-so-distant communales. And very soon, with everything in more or less the same area - except for Cholon, which we'll see later - came the Ben Thanh market, built in 1914 by the French and used as a central market hall during the colonial period. It, too, is still there, under a dome 28 m high, housing almost the same merchants selling the same products. At least when it comes to fruit and vegetables, loose tea or coffee, or ready-made dishes such as the sumptuous banana leaves wrapping glutinous coconut rice, banana fritters or incredibly light vermicelli soups...

For the rest, and as is now the case in most of South-East Asia, Ben Thanh market is a paradise for more or less successful counterfeits of just about every brand. From t-shirts to handbags, from belts to linen shirts, from pumps to three-stripe tracksuits. You could almost call it "au bonheur des douanesIf they didn't prefer, and by far, to take an interest in the antique objects, often real but sometimes just as fake, stacked up in the windows of the antique shops in nearby Rue Le Cong Kieu. Watch out for the intractable customs officers!

But the market, the legend, the colonial myth, is to be found in Cholon, the Chinese city, a city within the city and even more than that. Cholon, where the adolescent Duras set up her lover's bachelor pad. It was then Chinese nights of fantasyCholon, in other words, was the district of pleasure and all that went with it, the meeting point of an underworld now consigned to the history books. In other words, Cholon was the district of pleasure and all that went with it, the meeting point of an underworld now consigned to the history books. Small and large alike.

The belly of saigon

At the time, between the wars, Cholon was nicknamed the "belly of Saigon", like the Parisian halles. This is still virtually the case today, with the Binh Tay market pavilions, masterpieces of Chinese architecture designed by a Frenchman, as a welcome feature, like Baltard in Paris. Currently undergoing a complete overhaul, they are unfortunately closed to the public, but that's no big deal. It's all happening in the surrounding alleyways and other markets that are more or less covered to prevent the torrents of the monsoon; in stalls where you can find everything and more, in traditional herbalist shops that smell of perfume, but above all at stalls that offer the entire range of Chinese cuisine. In other words, just about everything you can eat, the best and the worst, fortunately most of the time totally unidentifiable by European eyes. So, for example, go and recognise that shrivelled black thing that's actually dried sea cucumber! For corporate groups, the area lends itself perfectly to the most extravagant of treasure hunts ? With its many pagodas, temples, churches and even tombs, it's packed with fabulous cultural treasures.

Back in the city centre, broken by so much noise and 100,000-volt activity, you can indulge yourself in the Apothicaire, one of the city's most elegant and, above all, orthodox massage institutes. It's housed in an old colonial house, with a delightful courtyard and small swimming pool buried in the tropical vegetation. You'll come away with a full range of homemade products and, above all, perfectly revitalised. So much the better, because tomorrow the Mekong's mythical lullabiesAnd always Duras, who ultimately did more for South Vietnam than any advertising agency.

Everything happens on the water's edge

First, there's the river, immense, almost a kilometre wide in Cai Be, dragging its yellow waves and water hyacinths under the blazing sun. Then there's the boat, a sampan reinterpreted with a woven bamboo roof, curtains floating in the breeze, a fruit basket, unlimited drinks and enamoured deckchairs. And above all, there is the life that has been organised here, because everything happens right on the water in the delta. Work and cultivation on the banks, communications and trade both on the river itself and on its branches or on the hundreds of canals that cut through the countryside. So, no doubt to avoid losing too much land, houses and villages are built on all the banks, perched on stilts to save on land.

The most spectacular activity, or at least the one that attracts tourists, whether business or pleasure, is to be found in the floating markets. Among the most popular is the Cai Rang market, which is the largest floating market These are the wholesale markets of the Mekong and even of Vietnam, veritable floating market halls that are best visited very early in the morning. Around seven o'clock all the same... But it's worth it, all these barges overloaded with multicoloured fruit and vegetables, these hard-working merchants passing watermelons and artichokes and so much more from one boat to the next, with the sound of the boats' engines in the background and, as a feast for the eyes, a few small double-paddled boats like the ones we used to use until not so long ago. The women wear the traditional pointed hats made of woven latanier and brightly-coloured clothes, obviously with little flowers. It's a lovely atmosphere that the many tourist boats don't manage to spoil.

Further on, a little further away, on the bank of a canal, a branch or a tributary - we don't really know and we don't care - we visit a garden, a sort of Eden that aims to show in situ the range of crops possible in this land of plenty: tamarinds, bamboo, grapefruit, mangoes, guavas, starfruit or durian, that fruit that is so delicious on the palate but so nauseating when opened that it is forbidden in hotels and aeroplanes. So, of course, we try it.

There's also history on these shores. Culture, and above all, the art of living with its sublime ancestral colonial housesThe Longanier restaurant, belonging to the Victoria hotel chain, is set at the end of a garden in a building that replicates the best of the period. Verandas, wicker armchairs, shutters, ceiling fans and, on the first floor, a large dining room overlooking the green. As well as the décor, you won't want to miss the fried 'Elephant Ear' fish and its extraordinary vertical presentation, wedged between bamboo sticks.

Scenes from the lover

For all that, and as far as the vertigo of luxury in Chinese colonial houses is concerned, it's on the way back that you'll find it. A dazzling, unique atmosphere created by a skilful interplay of simplicity and sophistication, extremely fine chiaroscuro, graceful colonnades, a floor from France, precious woods and a very rich collection of Chinese antiques. Jean Jacques Annaud made no mistake, setting the scene in his film The Lover - Duras again - the scene where the son goes to see his father knocked out on opium. The director has left a dedication framed on a wall: "I am dazzled by the spectacular splendour of this sublime residence". And he's not the only one. We're visiting, of course, and it's even a descendant of the rich owner from 1870 who's in charge. A very old and very beautiful lady.

The return journey is not very long, as the heart of the Mekong Delta is only 150, 170 km from the centre of the big city. During the day, you will be treated to one last show, performed by the hammock cafésThis is what they're called, and they're lined up shoulder to shoulder along the roads, with a plethora of hammocks in place of the usual chairs. All over the place. It's here that, tired from a long scooter ride - scooters are also used in the countryside - the drivers regain their strength. A glass of tea and a little nap. At certain times of the day, the number of consumers sprawled out is staggering. The extended road concept is definitely one to remember.

Once back in town and before heading back to the airport, you'll have to climb up to the Chill Sky Bar for a farewell or gala evening. It's the kind of roof top you'd expect to find anywhere in the world, with young people waving their hats under the lasers and a final 360° view of the city. the lights of Ho Chi Minh City. In fact, it's hardly anyone but the people of the North and the official bodies who call it that. For the others, the young people who are resolutely turned towards a modernity that they see as anything but radiant, for the natives of the city and the inhabitants of the working-class districts, it's Saigon, and that's that. For us too, for that matter.