My Son and Marble Mountain

We hired a car and driver today to go to My Son (pronounced Me Sun) and visit the remains of the Champa civilization. It looked like rain, so we took our trusty rain "coats" with us. We got picked up at 7 a.m. after a quick breakfast at the hotel, and headed off. We arrived in My Son by 8, and had the place pretty much to ourselves for about 45 minutes before the big tour buses started showing up.

It was very quiet and peaceful, standing among the ruins, the morning mist hanging on the mountains, the only sounds those of the bullfrogs, crickets, and other insects. The girls used their imagination to think about how it would have been like to live there many hundred years ago. They said it was similar to the secret garden story. My Son has been declared a world heritage site and some of the archaeological finds are on display. In fact, we were able to touch the artifacts and admire them up close. We were holding parts of history - items that these ancient people used in their daily lives! The buildings have mostly been grown over with vegetation, but they are amazing to see.

After My Son we went to Marble Mountain, which is across the road from the famous China Beach. The mountain is made of marble (hence the name) and there are numerous stone carvers in the town at the base of the mountain. There are many large caves in the mountain, and some of these were used as shelters and even a hospital during the "American War".

The passageways inside a couple of the caves were quite dark, but a couple of snack vendors loaned us flashlights on the condition that we buy a drink from them aftrward! There were lots of shrines and statues of Buddha and other, more scary characters, inside the dark caves. We felt like Indiana Jones, exploring the shadows, expecting some creature to come leaping out at us! Lots of fun. We found a sheltered area outside one cave and had our lunch. The picture below was taken from our lunch spot.

It had started to rain a little when we started climbing the mountain, and we were glad to have our rain coats. By the time we came back down, the rain had really picked up and a steady stream was flowing down the mountain and into the town below. We felt like we were being pushed down through a waterfall! We made it down to street level, and found the roads flooded and the water was ankle deep in some areas. All this water in about an hour and a half! Check out the water running down the steps in the picture below. Needless to say, our shoes and socks were soaked through and through. We had planned to go to China Beach for a swim after the mountain climbing, but decided to postpone that to a more sunny day!

We arrived back in Hoi An around 2 p.m. and changed into dry clothes. The girls did their school work, and then we headed off to supper. Our wet shoes are now in front of the fan in the hotel room. Hope they dry before we go on the next leg of our journey in 3 days' time :-)

NM