Vietnam Trip Day 5

On Day 5, we visited My Son (pronounced Me Sun).  It was the capital and religious center of the former Champa Kingdom.  The area was under Indian influence and Hindu temples were built here between the 7th and 13th centuries.  

Of course everything is geared toward the tourists.  When we first arrived, we saw several different traditional dances.  Here is one of the dances:

 

The temples were really interesting.  They worshiped the Hindu God, Shiva.  Each ruler built their own temple.  Each temple had 3 separate buildings, the first was an entrance, the second (I think) was a waiting area and the third the actual temple for worship.  It is sad that so many of these temples were destroyed during the war.  We call it the Vietnam War, but the Vietnamese call it the American War.

 

Poor Shiva lost his head.  I think it was actually taken to a museum.

 

As I mentioned earlier, much of this area was destroyed/damaged by bombing during the war.  There was a lot of fighting in this area.  Here is a bomb crater.  We saw several of these.

After we finished our My Son tour, we had a leisurely drive back to Hoi An.  Along the way we stopped to take pictures.   The houses were so interesting.  Here they are drying corn in the front yard.

 

Here's a guy hanging tobacco leaves.  First time I think I've ever seen tobacco like this.

Here is rice paper drying.

 

 There are tons and tons of these rice fields everywhere.  The white cloths you see are actually scarecrows used to keep the birds away.

Once back in Hoi An, our guide took us on a walking tour of the old town.  We stopped to have a drink of fresh coconut water.

 

We walked around the local market:

 

We had lunch at a local sidewalk stall.

 

We walked around the market some more.

We went back to our hotel and had a leisurely afternoon relaxing and reading.  The weather was really nice.  We kept hearing this music with drums and traditional Vietnamese instruments.  It would play for a while and then it would stop.  We walked over to the side of the hotel, peered over the fence and saw people wearing white robes with a white tie around there head.  We realized that it was a funeral and that the music we heard was coming from this house next door to the hotel.  Kind of eerie, but we really liked the music and could even hear it from our room.  After relaxing for a while, we went back to the old town for dinner and to walk around.  Another nice day.

Love to you all!

Karen