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For our first full day in Hoi An we booked a trip tosee My Son (pronounced me son) to see the old Cham temples. The name means beautiful mountains and couldn’t be more apt. It’s tucked away in the hills near Hoi An and date from the 4th centuary. The site is now on the Unesco World Heritage list and instead of going to deep into the history of the site you can read more about it here if you like
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/949. It was about a 45 minute bus ride from Hoi An where we made the obligatory stop at a souvenier shop where we were told we could use the "toilet" (I use the term loosely as it wasn’t a pleasant experience) only to get back on the bus and drive literally 50M around the corner to the My Son entrance where they had nice new toilets! Our guide was a young Vietnamese guy who was very good, he spoke good english and had a great sense if humour, even if some of the french people in the group didn’t quite get it!
When you look at the temples you can see the buildings in various states
of disrepair. Attempts have been made over the years to repair the temples and stop them from deteriorating any further. Amazingly enough it’s the bricks from only the last 20 years that are in the worst state. This was done using the traditional bricks and cement. When the Cham people built the temples they were able to cut their bricks so precicely and instead of cement it is thought they used resin from the trees to fix them in place. This means that there are only hairline gaps between the bricks which stop moisture from penetrating and doing any damage. The walls of the temples also get thicker as they go higher and so are very top heavy but what is left are still standing strong.
The reason there is so much damage to the site is because it was absolutely pulversied by the American B52 bombers during the Vietnam war. Sadly from the original only a very small percentage of what was originally there remains. There are also bullet holes in the buildings, various craters dotted around the site and 2 unexploded bombs which were removed from one of the buildings. Several countries have donated money
to Vietnam to help maintain and repair the site. The USA however, is not one of these countries.
There are also engravings in some limestone rocks that is completely un-decipherable as the language has been lost. It was a really interesting visit and well worth walking through the jungle in the heat! After this we were transported to our boat for the trip back to Hoi An along the Thu Bon river where were were promised a peaceful trip, taking in the beautiful views while eating lunch (vegetarian as the Cham people were hindus - result). Well, we certainly got lunch and the views, peaceful however it was not. The boat engine was so loud you could barely hear yourself shout which made it a long trip back! We eventually arrived at a small village which is famous for it’s boat building and wood carvings. It was really interesting to see the traditional, hand build methods which are still passed down through the generations.
From here it was back to the hotel for a quick swim before heading into Hoi An town centre for my second suit fitting. On our way we met a
group of young Vietnamese who wanted to practice their English. They asked us about England and took notes. Then they tried to teach us some Vietnamese and found our efforts very funny! It's a very hard language to learn. It's very tonal so unlike English where you can pronounce something slightly wrong and still know what it means, if you say it wrong in Vietnamese it could mean literally anything, or more likely you just make random sounds! They all wanted a photo with us so after a brief photoshoot we were back on track to the tailors. The suit was looking very good, just a couple of alterations still needed. We went for some food before wandering around Hoi An again. We’ve really fallen in love with this town, the architecture, the people, the slow(er) pace compared to the rest of Vietnam so far. The town must now be pretty much reliant on the tourist trade for the majority of it’s income but you can’t help but wonder what life would have been like here before us tourists came and invaded!
We didn’t have too much planned for today so borrowed a couple of bikes from
the hotel and made the short 4km ride out to Cau Dai beach. We spent the day lying in the sun (maybe a bit too much sun) and trying to discourage the hawkers trying to sell us souveniers. Eventually Kim got suckered in and bought 2 bookmarks. The ride back gave a nice cooling breeze as well as having to dodge a cow and a dog. We also passed a school during the Vietnamese school run where all the mums and dads showed up on mopeds to pick up the kids! It was back to the tailors for my final fitting and I have to say I’m exteremly please with the results! I ended up going for a 3 piece, navy suit with pin stripe shirt, all of which fits like a glove and an extremely high standard. Hopefully we’ll be able to fit everything in our bags for the flight home….
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