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Hoi An is an ancient town located in the central province of Quang Nam and is home to approximately 120,000 inhabitants.
In the 1st century the city was known as Lam Ap Pho (Champa City). It possessed the largest harbour in Southeast Asia. Between the seventh and 10th centuries, the Cham people of Champa, controlled the strategic spice trade and with this came tremendous wealth.
Hoi An was an important trading centre in Vietnam in the 16th and 17th centuries, where Chinese from various provinces as well as Japanese, Dutch and Indians settled.
Vietnam
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From the autumn 2016 trip to Vietnam:
Wednesday morning, October 5, the second day in Hoi An. The previous night, we arranged to tag along with a half day bus tour to My Son. (For any Chinese reading this, “My Son” comes from the Chinese…”meishan/美山”…which translates to “beautiful mountain for any English speakers reading this…which I’ll guess is everyone since I primarily write in English.)
I forget how much we paid, but I think it was 400,000 VND (~$20)/person for a small, private bus/van with a guide to come pick us up at our hotel at 8:30 – after a wonderful breakfast on the balcony – and we made our way the hour or so to My Son.
It’s not too far from Hoi An; I think I remember reading that it’s around 60 km away, so I’m not quite sure why it took an hour to get there. We stopped at 3-4 other hotels to pick up others – mostly Chinese tourists – before heading out of town. Even with that, it seemed to take a little longer than justified by the stated distance, since the roads are in great condition, in addition to having very little traffic. Really, though, this isn’t a complaint. I enjoyed seeing the countryside on the way out to My Son.
If you’ve seen my other collection from Siem Reap, you’ll know how much I love these thousand-plus year-old temples, so when I read about My Son – the capital of the Champa kingdom which ruled southern Vietnam roughly from Danang down to the southern tip of Indochina, I had to include this side trip.
Now, you absolutely cannot (or should not) compare this with the Angkor complex, and I won’t mention why here. If you can avoid comparisons, you’ll find a wonderful, small complex here. From the parking lot, you go to the very nice and informative Visitors’ Center to learn about the temples (what’s left of them) and a little of the Champa history.
After a few minutes orienting yourself to the surroundings, you walk to a bus stop and take an open bus two kilometers up the hill to the ruins. From there, you can take a loop trail – probably about a kilometer in total, if not a little farther – to see all of the ruins.
The temples aren’t named. They’re simply called “Group A, Group A1, Group B, Group C,” and so on. Group A, for example, would have a central temple and a handful of smaller ruins surrounding it. The groups are so small/condensed that it’s actually hard to know where one ends and another begins – especially with Groups A, B, and C. After a 10-15 minute walk from the bus stop, and immediately before arriving at the ruins, you pass a pavilion where they have cultural shows – which we saw – with singing and dancing, and also a concession stand/souvenir shop.
I really loved the little show and, hopefully, some of the pictures turned out well enough. It also wasn’t terribly long; about 30 minutes or so. After that, our guide finally took us through the various temples, or what’s left of them.
Sadly, many of these were destroyed – almost beyond repair – during the Vietnam War by the U.S. bombers. Sometimes, after bombing, they would follow up with Hueys and really finish things off. A French archaeologist apparently had to write a letter to President Nixon to beg him to stop destroying this particular area.
With those sad thoughts in mind, you wander around and see some rather demolished ruins, but also some renovations – almost all renovated with very, very little of the original left – but, you don’t get the feeling that this is a bad thing.
We finished at My Son and were on the bus back to Hoi An sometime around 1:00. We arrived no later than 2:00 and went straight out to get a wonderful local lunch that, for me, included a White Rose.
After lunch, we spent the rest of the day exactly as we did the day before, wandering around the exceptionally photogenic Old Town just to relax, shoot pictures, and have dinner. The weather was gorgeous for the entire day, so things turned out rather well.
That’s all for the two days in Hoi An. I would gladly come back to this town. However, the following morning, we would have another (identical) breakfast to today before bidding farewell to Madame An, Jean, and the rest of the fantastic staff at the Hoang Trinh Hotel. The Easy Riders – Mr. Trung and Mr. Trong’s nephew – would show up at exactly 8:30, as punctual as they promised – and we’d begin a new day wandering around central Vietnam on our way to Hue.
As always, thanks for dropping by and viewing these pictures. Please feel free to leave any questions or comments and I’ll answer as I have time.