No, this is not a post about Dylan. My Son, pronounced something between “me sun” and “may sun,” is the site of the largest Cham ruins in Vietnam. My Son was once the intellectual and religious center of the kingdom of Champa, and they built the various temples between the 4th century and the 13th century. The architecture is heavily influenced by India, and many of the temples were built by Cham kings and dedicated to Shiva.
Our guide stressed the connections between the Cham ruins and other famous contemporary sites in Southeast Asia, from Angkor Wat to Bagan and Borobudur. There are certainly cultural similarities, but My Son isn’t nearly as impressive as these other sites.
My Son was discovered by the French in the late 19th century. They excavated and rebuilt some of the temples and cut the heads off some of the statues for Le Louvre.
Unfortunately, the Vietnam Cong used My Son as a military base, and the Americans heavily bombed the area, destroying most of the buildings. Even today, the area is littered with bomb craters among the ruins.
A few of the temples are still in good shape,
with sculptures and ornamentation.
They are also slowly reconstructing buildings based in the extensive photographs taken by the French archeologists.
We went to My Son in a tour. It was much better than the Chinese tours we had been on earlier, not so packed with silly extras and, of course, having the explanation in English also helped. However, it was still too much and too slow for the kids. They were bored and had enough before we had reached the good parts. We eventually left the tour and went ahead on our own, so I could see everything, albeit quickly, and they could get what they really wanted at that point: noodle soups.
We were back at the hotel by 2:30 and played in the room before movie time/run time. Tomorrow, we are going to stay for a rest day in Hoi An. It is supposed to finally get hot. We can always hope.
robsherry 