Today we left the hotel early because we are going to My Son sanctuary, a UNESCO site. Here’s an overview from the UNESCO website. “During the 4th to 13th centuries there was a unique culture on the coast of contemporary Vietnam, owing its spiritual origins to the Hinduism of India. This is graphically illustrated by the remains of a series of impressive tower temples in a dramatic site that was the religious and political capital of the Champa Kingdom for most of its existence.”
Until 1079 AD, Vietnam was just what is considered northern Vietnam today and the Cham Empire was in southern Vietnam. Thru a series of events the north moved south. In 1079 AD the northern Vietnamese kidnapped the Cham emperor and the Cham people gave land in order to secure his return. Then in 1305 the Cham emperor fell in love with a beautiful northern Vietnam princess and traded land for her hand in marriage. Today there are about 700,000 Cham people in Vietnam. The Cham originated from Borneo and Indonesia so they have a very distinctive look.
The My Son sanctuary was a north Viet Cong headquarters during the war so the Americans bombed it, destroying some of the temples. The French got involved to petitioned President Johnson to stop bombing this important historical site. Johnson followed through and the bombing was stopped. Here’s a bomb crater
One of the big mysteries of the site is how the temples were built. Originally the Cham built them out of wood but the temples burned. Then they tried rock and the temples collapsed under their own weight. So the final solution was bricks but they didn’t use mortar so archaeologists don’t know how they managed to build structures that have lasted over a thousand years.
There were a lot of Hindu symbols and gods. In the temples there were yonis which is a representation of the female. During their rituals they would insert a lingham, guess what that represents. There were many representations of Shiva as well as elephants.
Here are some pictures of from My Son.
We came back to Hoi A for lunch and went to a place called Street. This is a non profit started by an American to take underprivileged kids and train them to work in 4 and 5 star hotels. The kids come from orphanages, poor families, and literally from the street and go through Street’s 14 month program where they learn to cook, to serve and to speak English. Each class has 25 or 26 students and they are about to start their 20th class. The kids go through a very rigorous application process that includes staff going to meet the parents and the family. It was very uplifting to see and the food was delicious. On this page is a great short video about Street, https://www.streetsinternational.org/videos
That evening we went down to the river. Hoi An is known for lanterns, a traditional craft that dates back more than 400 years ago. We got on a boat and cruised along the river, enjoying all the lights.
Once it was completely dark we light our own paper/candle lanterns, made a wish and set them adrift.
The water is very high and we went under a bridge but we didn’t quite clear it. There were a number of loud bumps and some of us thought the canopy was going to collapse on us. Understandably the captain was quite upset. We ended up giving him some money to fix his boat.
We disembarked and walked through the night market to a fun place for dinner called Madame Vy Restaurant. It was like a food court with street food stalls. Dinner was very good but the lemongrass ice cream for dessert was absolutely delicious.
On the way back to the hotel we learned that tomorrow is Mai’s, our guide, birthday. That evening we were scrambling a bit to arrange a birthday cake for her. Stay tuned to see if we were successful.