My Son and Nha Trang

We've had a couple of early mornings and long days.  We got up before the sun to go to My Son just outside of Hoi An, got on an overnight bus to Nha Trang, sort of slept on the bus, arrived in Nha trang around 7am and explored the city.  It has definitely felt like more than two days have passed with all the stuff we did!

Oct 26 – My Son and bus

We were up before the sun to go on our My Son tour, pronounced Me Son. Part of the attempt to draw in tourists for this early morning tour was to see the sun rise at My Son. We didn't get there in time for the sun rise but fortunately breakfast wasn't too bad, eggs and a baguette. We arrived at My Son after the sun had risen but it was nice and quiet with just our group of 20 there. Our guide actually guided us around to the different sites explaining some things as she went. My Son was a Hindu place of worship, it was abandoned by it's Cham builders several hundred years ago. The Vietnamese people pushed the Cham's out of the area. My Son suffered much destruction during the American/Vietnam war. You can see bomb craters in the earth. It's very sad that some of history was destroyed during modern war. There has been some reconstruction of My Son, some before the war. Archeologists still do not know the recipe to remake the bricks or how the bricks were stuck together as no mortar was used. The difference between the bricks is striking. The new bricks are blacked with moss and are much rougher on the surface, while the old bricks have little moss growing on them and are still smooth. It's very cool to see ancient engineering besting modern engineering. We didn't spend too long at My Son but it was enough to see everything. We got back on the bus just in time, it started raining. The rain had stopped by the time we got back to the hotel. We had a little nap, checked out, and got some breakfast. We headed down to the Central Market, something we should have done sooner and checked out pearls, fruit, and food. I picked up my dress, it now fit properly and had the embroidery finished. We escaped the heat by getting some 3000d draft beers and some spring rolls. We wandered Hoi An some more and beaded back to the market for some very cheap food. We bumped into Christina and Mark on the way to the bus and said our good byes. Hopefully we'll get to see them again somewhere. The bus to Nha Trang wasn't too bad. We did have to stop for a bit to change a tire though. At least the bus had A/C when it was running and the windows opened.

My Son

 

 

My Son

My Son - New brick on left, old brick on right

Hoi An River Side

Oct 27 – Nha Trang

We arrived in Nha Trang this morning and surprisingly had actually been able to get some sleep on the bus. I did get to see the sun rise over the ocean. We found a hotel with little trouble, the bus dropped us off in front of it. We weren't all that sleepy so we set off to find breakfast. This was harder than we thought it would be. There are a ton of hotels around us but not too many restaurants. We found a little place selling rice and whatever you wanted on top. I got egg and Beau got squid. It wasn't bad and it was cheap. We rented a motorcycle, again, first we went the Long Son Pagoda behind which was a huge seated Buddha. It was super hot out. Afterwards we headed to the Po Nagar Cham towers. These were built by the same people as My Son but seemed in better condition. There had been 10 towers at one point but not only 4 remain, they were built between the seventh and twelfth century. I like My Son better, it had more character, especially being set out in the jungle, these are right in the city. The Cham towers were very busy with worshipers and tourists. It was only noon so we set off to find Bai Dai Beach, a nice beach 20km south of Nha Trang. We actually found it with only a little bit of driving around. It had beautiful white sandy beaches and minimal tourists. We went for a dip to cool down and then got some lunch. We had BBQ clams, crab and noodles. Yum! We hung out on the beach for a bit and then went swimming again. There were some good waves to play in, a few people were surfing. It was fun just bobbing around. We dried off and headed back into Nha Trang. We got cleaned up and headed out for some dinner. We had seafood hot pot. It was delicious. The staff seemed to think we didn't know what we were doing so they dumped all the food into the hot pot for us. We were going to cook stuff as we ate it but apparently that isn't right. It turned out very nice though.

Big Buddha

Cham Towers

Cham Towers

Bai Dai Beach

mmm Sea Food Hot Pot