My Son Ruins

So we had another early start to go to My Son - "Vietnam's most evocative Cham site". It was a massive religious site built in seven distinct phases and styles between the seventh and thirteenth century - a holy place considered the "domain of gos and god-kings". Well Martin and I are aspiring. The site had various Cham towers and halls, with various degrees of decay, hidden in the partially-cleared vegetation of the surrounding mountains. Back in the day the A towers would have been a great lookout on top of their hill. The crowning glory of the complex as found by the French - tower A1 - was kindly toppled by American bombs during the war. Around the site you can see plenty of damage in the form of craters and bullet holes and toppled buildings - not surprising as the Viet Cong based themselves here.

Interestingly no mortar was used in the construction of the buildings and the bricks were cut so smoothly they left only a hairline crack between them. Some have suggested that a glue from local trees was originally used but no-one seems to know. What is for sure is that the Chams would beat me at a game of Jenga!

On the way out we went past a fine arts centre with a really cool stylized elephant gargoyle outside. (I'll put a pic here once it lets me!).

Trying to get onto the boats later, a little local boy dressed in a Chinese dragon mask was running between us all and then decided to start running at the bull (almost next to us) which was protecting its calf and the calf's mother. It didn't take the bull too long to become distinctly unimpressed by the torments and decide to charge towards us! It might have only had short horns but I didn't fancy getting hit with them so it was quite fortunate we move quickly!

The boat dropped us off at a wood carving village where they produced everything from furniture down to ornamental bowls, laughing fat blokes and some robust-looking crabs which were actually secret storage devices. James Bond eat your heart out. The fine detail in the bowls was amazing and would surely make you go blind trying to copy it.