Last day in Hoi An

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It was our last full day in Hoi An and we still had plenty to see and do. The TV in our hotel room had not been turned on once, which is more than I could say for Hue, channel surfing through the American Idol and CSI marathons in the evening. With the wide range of shopping options to some of the finest dining experiences I have ever had the pleasure of in my two tours of Vietnam, a day experience in Hoi An guaranteed a good nights sleep.

This morning Michelle and I had a tour organized, like our last day in Hoi An, this was the last pre-booked tour we had for the remainder of our Vietnam trip, a visit to My Son; a religious and intellectual centre where Champa kings were crowned and buried between the fourth and thirteenth century.

We arrived via private tour at the My Son temples mid morning, just ahead of the main tourist coach rush allowing us to have a limited, but exclusive look around the main temple area in solitude. The architecture was epic, and seemed very familiar (to the untrained eye) to the ruins in South America which featured in the first Lara Croft Tomb Raider film. The temple remains, their outer shell made from sandstone what would of have been shiney and smooth similar to the Great Pyramids of Giza was now a water eroded dark colour, with various forest ferns, creepers and spider being the modern day occupants of the structures.

Unfortunately, events during the American War destroyed many of the site's temples. The VC had used My Son as a key base which forced US bombing of the site leaving about 20 of the original 70 structures intact. Bomb craters next to some of the temples are clearly visible.

As interesting as the history of the temples was, it was dwarfed by the ancient look of the ruins, and I was more interested taking photographs of these ruins than the story behind them. The My Son grounds were divided into four major sites, some more intact than others, the first site we visited was the most intact of the sites, with us being able to walk up to and inside various temples of worship, libraries and armoury rooms. By the time we arrived at the third site, significantly more degraded than the first two, my attention had fled from the temple remains to the capabilities of my 55-300mm lens, photographing the various insect life around the ruins. My Son, like the rest of Vietnam for that matter has a very tropical temperate, and as a result an incredible amount of insect life thrives in the forest regions. Although the ruins may of been remnants of a culture that has since faded and been assimilated into Vietnam culture, My Son today was crawling with life, of the insect kind. Happily enjoying the ‘hunt’ I snapped up some rather great close-ups of various lizards, butterflies and bees (which is a lot harder than you think, given the size and speed at which these things manoeuvre at), our guide catching onto my distracted interest started spotting out various insects and kept a keen eye out for anything interesting to train my lens on, teasing out a small frog with a stick so I could line up the perfect shot.

The tour ended close to midday, giving Michelle and I ample time to get some lunch in town before collecting our tailored suits from Yaly at 2pm. The suits came out fantastic, worth every penny we paid, though I have no idea when I will wear mine, since on a good day I roll up to work in Jeans and a shirt! But getting a tailored made suit in Vietnam was an opportunity, an experience that just could not be passed up.

The rest of the evening was spent cleaning up at all of the various shops that Hoi An had to offer. Since starting the trip, both Sapa and Hue hadn’t really offered much in the way of shopping. Hoi An on the other hand had every style of shop imaginable. Since Michelle and I are currently building a house together, one of the hopes of this Vietnam trip was to bring back some unique items for the house.

With our suitcases bludging at their seams, and overweight, fortunately only by a few kilograms each, we were ready to shift gears for the more relaxing pace that Nha Trang had promised us.

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Photos

Michelle at MySon
All of the statue monuments around the area are headless. This was done to void the statues of their power. Michelle's head now reforming the statue as one is a goddess statue of great power... my god what have I done?!

One of the many new locals
The 55-300mm lens is out..

Comments

[Karen]

Slide show
I guess Steve and I had better book in a slide show night this weekend.