Old French Prison & Museum

Northwest Vietnam


Son La’s old prison was a French penal colony where anti-colonial revolutionaries were incarcerated from 1908. It was destroyed by the ‘off-loading’ of unused ammunition by US war planes after bombing raids, but is now partially restored. Rebuilt turrets stand guard over claustrophobic underground cells and a famous lone surviving peach tree, planted by To Hieu, a 1940s inmate.