Vietnam Ghost Story: Đà Lạt Lovers

A student at the military school 1956

and a literary teacher at the nearby high school

fall in love Cute:

each day after school the military student left

a love letter on her door Thao (an orphan)

wrote back and left a love letter reply on the door

of her small house on the hill

Their love grew like a stack of letters

They were in love and waited

for Thahn to graduate from military school

before living as a couple officially

Unlike Thao Thahn is from wealth

and his rich parents insist that

upon graduation he return home

to the Delta and marry a local girl of their choosing

Unable to defy them he does

Thao devastated jumps into a lake

drowns leaves a letter

with instructions to bury her body

near her house and the memories

of her love for Thahn

on the love letter hill

Thahn finds out about her death

goes to war is killed

and then buried in Đà Lạt

next to his beloved Thao

on the hill per his written wishes

But

the widow spurned in death

won't leave it at this

She instructs that his body be removed

and taken back home to the Delta

What a terrible

idea

and now his ghost wanders

Actually

both sites are haunted by their ghosts

and Đà Lạt made the site on the hill

into an attraction you can visit

because why not

Source: A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure (Wave Books, 2021)