My Son

Today is our last day in Hoi An. We got up at 7am, packed all our stuff, had breakfast and got on a coach trip to go to My Son. My Son (pronounced May Son) means beautiful mountain. They are ruins of Hindu monuments and temples dating back over 1000 years. My Son was built by the Kingdom of Champa and rediscovered by the French in the mid 1900s. The Champa people came to My Son to pray to the God Shiva. Many architects and experts have studied My Son and tried to work out how it has lasted so long and how it was built as no cement or mortar was used but, if it wasn't for the US airforce bombing the site, the temples would still be standing.

There was originally 71 monuments/buildings. The site was bombed for ten days and over 50 were destroyed. We toured round the ruins. Some buildings are still standing almost whole, elaborately decorated with statues and patterns. Unfortunately after the French discovered the site, before leaving Vietnam they stole the heads off.many for the statues. The head from the statue of the God Shiva is now in the Louvre.

It was very humid and sticky as we walked round. It was a very interesting place. The ruins were pretty cool. The guide was a bit eccentric, but I'm not sure if that's just the way his accent made him sound when he spoke English. He sounded like a robot that dramatises everything. He kept laughing at his own jokes and seem to find the phallic symbols absolutely hilarious, at one point talking to a statue of a Lingam (you can Google yourself what that is in Hindu symbolism). We wandered round for two hours, passing many cobwebs and one huge poisonous spider on the way, before heading back to the bus. 

We went back to the hostel to chill for a bit before getting our bags and heading to a restaurant near the bus stop. We had some food and sat there for a while until we had to get the bus. The process of getting on the bus was a lot more organised than any other the oher trips. We were given tickets and bed numbers which hasn't happened before. We set off at 6pm. Thankfully the bus had wifi. We stopped twice before 11pm for loo breaks and then drove right through to 5:20am. We managed to get some sleep but not a great deal so will just be taking it easy today. We walked to the hostel and found a man who may or may not be the receptionist asleep on the sofa. We debated whether or not to wake him up. Now we are sitting on the couches waiting for him to arise. It's 5:50am.