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.

Assembly Halls and Spring Rolls

We had breakfast at half 9 today and then headed out to the old town. We bought a combo ticket for less than a fiver that allowed us to visit 5 out of a list of around 20 historic building. The first building we went to was the Phuc Kien Assembly house. It was a bit like a temple in my opinion. There wasn't much information about it so I can't tell you much about it. It had a pretty cool dragon sculpture and was nicely decorated.

The second stop was Tan Ky house. It is an occupied house that has belonged to one family for seven generations. A woman have us a very quick tour. You could only go round the ground floor as the family were living on the upstairs floors. It has elements of Vietnamese, Japanese and Chinese architecture. The house opens out onto the river front and consequently it floods every year. There were markings on the wall to show the height each year. In 2009 it flooded to almost twice my height. There wasn't much to see in the house and every opportunity was taken to attempt to flog something. For example the little tour went over to a table and asked you what year you were born, told you the animal and what it signified, and then tried to sell you a pendant with the animal on. Lauren was born in the year of the horse, which apparently symbols prosperity. I was born in the year of the rooster. I was having trouble understanding what she was saying it symbolises. It sounded sympathy. Please feel free to correct me if you know. There wasn't actually much to see in the house which was a bit of a shame.

Next we went back to the Japanese Bridge we saw yesterday and actually went on to it. It had a little side room that had a shrine type thing in, but the bridge was more interesting to look at from the outside.

Our fourth visit was the Quang Trieu Assembly Hall. Again it looked like a temple but it was a pretty nice building. There were some interesting dragon and goat statues in the back garden. We sat on a bench in courtyard for a while, slowly dying from the heat. There were only a couple of other people there so it was quite peaceful.

Our final stop was at the Quang Cong temple. All the building and assembly halls were fairly similar. Or maybe that's just because I wasn't paying close enough attention. The colours and patterns were all very similar and the shrines were also quite similar. They were nice places to visit though.

We returned to the hostel around 2pm to have a break from the heat.  Then at 4pm we went to cooking class at Cafe 43. Well, it was called a cooking class.  I was a little disappointed in the amount of participant we had. We chopped a few things up ad did some stirring but that was about it. We were making 3 dishes: chicken with chilli and lemongrass, sweet and sour pork, and pork spring rolls. After we had finished we got to eat them. It was just us and the teacher. She showed us how to cut up the veg, measured out the spices/sugar/salt and added them in to the pre-cut and weighed meat. We then mixed the meat round with the spices and chopped the rest of the veg. Then we stirred the pan while it cooked. For the spring rolls the same happened, but Lauren had to use her hands to mix all the ingredients together, then we spooned the mixture onto rice paper, rolled them up and fried them in a huge amount of oil.  The most disappointing thing was when we were making the sweet and sour pork; the sauce was already pre-made. We essentially just added veg and meat like you would do with a jar from the supermarket at home. Even worse, within about 2 minutes of turning up I saw a huge rat running across the cafe floor behind us, and it spent the whole time scurrying back and forwards.

After the cooking class we headed back to the hostel for a bit. The lady at reception found some glue for me to use to fix my shoes which had started coming apart, and being the genius I am I managed to get glue everywhere and almost stuck my hand to the shoe with hot glue. I managed to pull my finger away just on time, with some resistance and I spent the rest of the evening with dried glue on my finger. But my shoes are now firmly fixed.

Around half 6 we wandered down to the night mkaret. It was so pretty. There were hundreds of different coloured lanterns along the river front. The pictures just aren't the same. We had a very quick wander round the market before returning back to the hostel, showering and packing.

Homestays and Heinz in Hoi An

We got up at 6:30am this morning to get the bus at 8am from Hue to Hoi An. The bus turned up late and when it arrived we were a bit disappointed to discover it wasn't a sleeping bus and we had to sit up like normal people. It was quite cramped. We headed straight through to Hoi An and arrived around 12pm. We walked for about ten minutes to the place we are staying, which is actually a home stay rather than a hostel. Homestays were traditionally when you stay in a local person's house rather than a hostel, although more modern ones are almost like mini hostels. The one we are in has 4 rooms. We are in a 3 bed ensuite. All the bed are side by side with only a wooden cabinet thing separating you from the person next to you. They are high enough though to keep you out of sight. It's a very nice room.

We got the low down about Hoi An from the host, had a drink and some crisps and went for a wander. It was very hot again today.  Hoi An has a lot of tailors but we didn't get any clothes. We wandered down the main streets and past the Japanese Bridge. We dipped into the central market, which is a covered market. It was very quiet and half the stall owners were lying asleep on the floor. Hoi An is quite different from all the other places we have been. It's very cute and the buildings are in a different style. It's right on the river front. There are lanterns hung all over the place.

After wandering around for a while we stopped for a drink in a cafe and then headed back to the accommodation. I showered and we did some research for the next few days and then we headed out around 6:15pm for dinner. Having had a lot of rice in the last few days, we opted fr a place called the kebab shack, run by a British man named Tim.  We both had sausage, chips and beans, with real Heinz ketchup,  followed a chocolate brownie for afters. Lauren had strawberry ice cream and whipped cream with hers. It was a nice taste of home and only cost £4.97, including drinks.

After dinner we wandered back to the homestay, Lauren showered and then we just relaxed.