We were on tour today. We decided to head out to My Son (pronounced mee son), centre for the Champa kingdom - which ruled from the 4th to 13th centuries. A set of temples were created at My Son during these era. Unfortunately, the Viet Cong used the structures as a base, and, of course, American B-52s bombed the temples. Many of the temples were levelled, but there are a few remaining, although some were completely consumed by the jungle (sound familiar?), and others pillaged by the Chinese, Khmers (Cambodia), and Vietnamese.
Instead of paying $20 for a taxi, we took a $5 tour bus. While we were told 8am for our departure, unfortunately we lost a bit of time as we had to wait for the bus while it picked up others before us, and then, once on the bus, wait while we picked up more people. That's the real cost of choosing the bus vs. the taxi unfortunately. Along the way, we passed through a small town of Tra Kieu. Our guide pointed to a Catholic church where there was a Mother Mary sighting years ago. There used to be a 3 day festival to celebrate the sighting, but after the Communists took control, there had been only a 1 day celebration. This last year, they went back to 3 days, our guide saying a good sign of the easing of the communist suppressions (interesting). We arrived onsite at My Son 10am, and shortly thereafter took a short drive in an old American military jeep to the temple locations. Our first stop was a Champa traditional dance for about 20 minutes performed by a few locals in Champa costume.
All the while (our pickups and dance show), the sun was heating up. It was now very hot as we headed out to see the actual sites. While the guide book makes the crowds at My Son to be similar to those we saw at Angkor Wat, when we arrived, we were pretty much the only ones there (granted we had a tour bus of about 35 people). But it felt small, and after a quick intro by our "guide", we were left alone to wander the ruins. We enjoyed the site for about 1.5 hours - which is about the max amount of time you can spend here, as many of the temples are destroyed. Again, the sun reminded us it was time to head back to the air-conditioned bus, and we were off.
Instead of taking the bus all the way back, we paid an extra $2pp to take a boat ride back, where they also served lunch. Surprisingly, lunch was actually good - a vegetable and tofu dish with rice. We enjoyed the slow ride back in the large boat with only about 12 other people. 2 other couples on the boat were around the world travellers, both of them ending in 2 weeks, finishing up a 6 month and 8 month tour. It was fun to chat with them about the rough and good times, what they liked best, what they hated, etc.
On the way back to Hoi An, we stopped off at a small village where they made wood furniture, wood carvings, anything wood :). It's place like this where we deforest and get our cheap furniture! Crazy to see it being done.
We arrived back in Hoi An at 2:30pm, picked up our plane tickets from a local agent we had purchased them from, and then headed to the hotel's pool (which was at our sister hotel around the corner). The pool was great - especially in the heat. We enjoyed relaxing for an hour, washed up, and then picked up Jaimie's dresses and new top. The tank top actually turned out to be really good and we were glad we made the choice to have the dress chopped off :)
It was our last night in Hoi An, and we couldn't pass up another short stop at the Mango Rooms. We did want to grab dinner elsewhere, so we just stopped here for a Mango Daiquiri and their fresh spring rolls with peanut sauce, not to mention their incredible free chips and mango salsa. It's going to be hard to leave this place! We headed to another popular restaurant along the shore front (there's so many), and grabbed a small dinner.
Across the river, a local carnival-like party was set up, with huge speakers attracting a lot of attention. We decided to head over - it was fun to join in their local celebrations. They had food shops, little nik-nak shops for the locals, and one or two tourist geared shops. They also had a bunch of carnival games. Everytime we approached, we'd get a bunch of giggles, and invites to play. We politely refused as all of the winning numbers, instructions, etc were all being called out in Vietnamese (plus we weren't really interested in winning one of the many cooking pots they had up for prizes). It was fun to see the local kids and adults alike having some fun (they seem to work around the clock!). Unfortunately, we didn't bring the camera, so no pics! :( After our stop at the carnival, it was time to call it a night!
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Day 116 - Hoi An < | Index | Photo Galleries | > Day 118 - Ho Chi Minh City
