Thursday - My Son and the Cham temples

Today was an early start as we had pre booked a tour to visit the Champa ruins in My Son, 55kms from Hoi An.  After a hearty breakfast we were picked up by the tour bus and driven the short 1 hour journey through the country to My Son.

The ruins, described by some as Vietnam's version of Angkor Wat are set in a lush jungle valley, with streams and dragonflies the only noise you could here (until the throngs of tourists arrived that is!).

So, the history lesson - the kingdom of Champa ruled what is now central Vietnam between the 4th and 13th centuries, with the My Son complex acting as their religious centre.  It is thought that the temples were never lived in, but instead were used as shrines to worship Cham Kings associated with divinities, especially Shiva.

The French rediscovered  the site in the 19th century and began restorations, however the Americans with their fleet of B-52s then completed the restoration work with an awful lot of bombs. . 

After a couple of hours exploring the ruins we headed for the shade to wait for the bus pick up, where we met our guideand drove to our boat on the Thu Bon river.  Lunch was served, before setting off for a pleasant journey along river towards Hoi An.

Before docking at Hoi An we made a stop at a traditional carpenters village (of course no tour would be complete without the stop at the 'tat' market!).

In the evening we headed in to town for our last night in Hoi An, and luckily we had timed our visit with the full moon which brings about Hoi An's Legendary Night. For one night a month the street lights are turned off, all vehicles are banned from the centre and the streets and waterfront are lit by candles, including many floating across the water. We joined in the festivities by lighting our own floating candle (which was reluctant to float any more than six feet away from us !!).