Vietnam - Hoi An & Cham Ruins

My Son Sanctuary

My Son was the capital of the Champa empire from the 4th to 12th century. Although much of the site is in ruins (some destroyed by the americans), there are still a lot of temples and structures remaining which give you a good idea of what this area used to be like.

We booked a half day tour through Orchid Garden Homestay for $13USD each and opted for the early start - 5am for the Sunrise half day tour. Don't expect to see the sunrise when you arrive at the site though, after picking up all the bookings from hotels and stopping at a cafe for a baguette breakfast, the sun ends up coming up while you are in the bus on the way. Despite losing the chance to take some temples + sunrise photos, the tour was still very good as due to the early start there were barely any other tourists around. We were taken through all the temples and halls, some were kitted out museum style with a few relics on display. The group was allowed to wander around and inside most of the buildings which were extremely narrow and stuffy, most were places of worship for the god Shiva. There were also obvious areas which had been bombed and taken over by the jungle.

first view of My Son

relics in one of the halls

one of the main points of interest at My Son is that all the structures are built using red brick and no mortar

jungle taking over the ruins

you can see how overrun a number of the ruins are!

After the My Son tour, there was an option to either take the bus back to Hoi An, or take a boat back. We opted for the boat, and discovered that out of a full busload of people, we were the only ones to take this up! A bit wary (have we just stumbled onto a dodgy scam that everyone else was warned about?) we boarded a small boat, were handed a small container of fresh fruit to snack on, and cruised on down towards Hoi An. It was relaxing, but perhaps the reason no-one else had come along was that it wasn't terribly exciting. We stopped off at Kim Bong, a small village where for generations they have been creating woodwork for boats, carvings, sculptures and furniture. It was nice to cruise past locals fishing, see some rural village life and view Hoi An from the river, but I wouldn't say this part of the tour was a must.

Kim Bong artisans at work

looking over to Hoi An from the boat

60,000VND entry if you are going without a tour