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Published: January 3rd 2011
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A man knocked on our door at 7:55 and told us to hurry! So we were surprised and went downstairs and he took us on his motorbike to the place where the bus was going to pick us up at. He told us to have a seat at the restaurant there (the Candle I think...) and about 1 minute later told us no no! The bus is coming!
It wasn't. But the woman in charge ran us out two baguettes to go and after waiting a little while longer, stole them back to hurry and add jelly and butter and a water bottle and some minibananas for dessert. The plain baguettes were free, but when she added the other stuff, we ended up paying her. She was really sweet. Anyways, the bus came, we dutifully took our malaria pills, and were still picking people up at 8:50. By 9:00 we were on the road to My Son and got there about 1 hour later. It was fun to see some of the people planting rice on the sides of the roads...it was so pretty and just so
green.
History lesson:
My Son is a UNESCO site, I think, but
interesting
see the difference? it was once full of Hindu structures for the local Cham. In 1969 President Nixon allowed the US to bomb the site because of intel reporting that the Viet Cong was hiding out there. Turns out they were really hiding up in the mountains, but the site was almost completely destroyed. Now there are only about 20 structures remaining. There are still land mines littering the sides of small roads. In 1895 the French discovered My Son and in 1937 stole the heads off of most of the statues (these are now in the Louvre). Shiva statues (now with missing heads) are always carved with many arms to reflect the belief of "destroy to create". Many of the trees were destroyed in the war and the ones growing there now were imported from Australia. The buildings that are still standing have been studied for many years because there is no mortar between the bricks and no wearing on the structures, something archeologists have been unable to recreate. In 2001 they started reconstruction but have not finished because they still cannot replicate the original design. A French theory is that they used botanical oils from trees as a paste -- the
clay was brought from rice fields by elephants. They say that first a wooden structure was built, with a sandstone foundation, and then the bricks were placed, burned with fire, painted with sugar and honey, and then burned again. When they rennovators tried to preserve and recreate the structures using this technique, it did not work...Each site has an altar representing either male or female. Nandi, the holy cow, carries Shiva, and there is only one left at the site.
Our guide spoke as if he were in a kung fu movie, so it was hard to concentrate. He was a good guide though, I guess, and we saw everything and kept our schedule as it was supposed to be. We took a bus to the boat and then had a small lunch of rice and veggies before stopping off at a small fisherman's village where we were taken in to see woodcarvers before heading back to town.
When we got back we went to Rainbow Divers but decided to leave the expensive diving to Thailand and the Philippines. So this left us to peruse the myriad of tailors. I will be having two cotton dresses made (768,000
VND) and go back for the fitting tomorrow and Ronald will have a new jacket soon ($57.00).
Then we bought tickets for the traditional art show (there's a video of the hostess below)...interesting...
Technical Details * Laughing Cow cheese is
everywhere in Viet Nam and I LOVE it!
* they have fresh beer every day for MUCH cheaper than the other beers, but it's really only good in the morning to afternoon because after that it loses its fizz
* Vietnamese are nice to Americans
* My Son entrance fee: 60,000
* "My" = beautiful, "son" = mountain
* traditional art show entrance fee: 50,000
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