Hoi An isn’t called the City of Lanterns for nothing. This is why a walk in the old city streets at night is not to be missed.
In addition to being featured in shops, lanterns light the entryways to pagodas.
They add distinction to restaurants and bars.
And, of course, there are the streets. The magical, glorious streets.
My husband and I visited My Son before we truly understood the full antiquity and diversity of the many ethnic groups living in Vietnam. I don’t recommend this approach. But the obvious care with which the site has been and is being restored speaks to the importance of this ancient site and the respect the Vietnamese have for it.
The sign above, located at the drop-off point where visitors must leave their cars and buses, gives some indication of the extent of the site. This drop-off area is still some distance from the actual historical site. A special electric vehicle brings the visitors along a specially built road to the actual sanctuary. Isolated towers may be seen in the distance, Piranesian ruins surrounded by jungle.
At our destination, we learn that My Son was built by the Cham people during the thousand-year heyday of the Champa kingdom (or kingdoms; apparently, scholars disagree), from the fourth to about the fourteenth century A.D. The Champa kingdom in central Vietnam, where My Son is located, was defeated by the Vietnamese from the north in 1471, and the Cham people fled south. Many still live in southern Vietnam.
My Son was only ever a temple complex, at a short remove from the capital city. The Cham were, at that time, Hindu. (Most of the ones living in the south today are Muslim.) And the magnificent red-brick temples of My Son were Hindu temples and other religious buildings.
Located deep in the jungle, the temples of My Son were allowed to fall into ruin for centuries, until the late 1800s, when the French attempted some restoration. But war put an end to that, and when the North Vietnamese used the site as one of their bases, the Americans bombed it. Bomb craters are still visible. Several of the temples were severely damaged.
Perhaps this is fitting for a site largely devoted to Shiva, the god of destruction and war. But the site is beautiful, the temples magnificent even in ruin, and the complex an important monument in the history of civilization on Earth. As visitors and citizens of a diverse and wonderful world, my husband and I are grateful that My Son is now being carefully restored as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Before leaving, we were treated to a performance of Cham music and dance. Quite a treat!
Hoi An, Vietnam is a centuries-old trading port dating back to the Champa empire of the 15th to the 19th centuries. With the defeat of the Cham people and their relocation farther south in Vietnam in the early nineteenth century, Hoi An became less important politically and commercially, and has survived nearly intact until now. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
The old city is physically delightful, its narrow streets framed by houses and shops that range from decades- to centuries-old, and no more than two or perhaps three stories high, with lots of trees and colorful lanterns adding to its charm.
One of the main points of interest is the Japanese bridge. Inside the bridge, there is a “guardian statue at either end: a monkey and a dog. Here’s the dog.
You can see that there are lots of tourists in these pictures, indeed, in the entire old city. Many, if not most, of the businesses in the old city cater to them.
You may have also noticed that there are a lot of lanterns. But more about that in another post.