My Son

We finally arrived into Hoi An just after 17:00, and decided that instead of taking a much needed shower we would just head into town, tour a little, eat dinner, and have a few drinks at one of the many cafes that are mentioned in the guide books. We’ll post all of our Hoi An stories tomorrow, as we also took an afternoon after My Son and it fully deserves a separate post.

My Son is a series of ancient temples that were built as a religious center during the Cham dynasty sometime between the 4th and 13th centuries. It had been rediscovered by the French in the 1890’s, and they had spent countless years documenting all of the buildings and relics along with doing some restoration work. Over 80% of the site was destroyed during the Vietnam War from American bombing runs, as the Viet Cong were using these temples as ammunition dumps. The amount of damage and bomb craters that show after 30 years is amazing.

We got up early and were pleased that the weather looks like it was going to be perfect. A nice day that wasn’t too hot and mostly blue skies, apparently the last two days ranged from tropical storm to 38 degrees (100 Fahrenheit) with over 90% humidity.

When we arrived at My Son our guide directed us over to a seating area so we could watch traditional dance of the natives. There were about 4 other people waiting for this show, so we sat and waited hoping it would be a quick dance routine. When more and more tourists arrived and suddenly the group was pushing 40 people we asked our guide if we could leave now so as to see the sights while there weren’t groups of people milling around the sites. He didn’t seem to like that idea, “Wait and enjoy that dance, it is very good. If you don’t like the music then we can go.”

We gave it maybe 3 minutes before we got up, still intent to view at least some of the sights ahead of this throng of tourists. There were a few other people that had this same idea, but the dancing went on for an additional 10 minutes so this jump really helped one to fully appreciate the beauty of the sight.

It is a wonderful site that really only takes about two hours to walk around and see everything. The Italians and Japanese are doing a lot to work on rebuilding some of the temples that were destroyed in the war, so in the next few years even more temples should be there for people to enjoy.