30 September Hoi An to Nha Trang

Sorry, this post is out of date order and I can't work out how to juggle it.

In the morning we boarded a bus and were driven to My Son, a Champa temple complex which was begun in the 11th century around about the time of the Battle of Hastings. On the way we stopped at a wholesale fish market that was still buzzing with activity: men and women trading very quietly for the freshly caught fish.


We met three funerals coming the other way with the mourners dressed in white and with white bands around their heads. The procession was made up bikes and trucks and the flower of mourning, the white lilly, decorated most of the vehicles. There was an official dressed like a general whose job it was to chase away the evil spirits. This man is hired by the family to conduct the service.

We learned that in the south they get two crops of rice a year. One crop takes 100 days and the harvest takes 7 days with all hands on deck. If it is not harvested quickly, it collapses so if rain interrupts, they often tie the rice up in bundles to keep it upright.

Back to My Son. It is a huge complex which the French were meticulously restoring but many of the temples were destroyed b y American bombs in the war. The Champa people came overland from India and settled in the south of Vietnam. The God worshipped here was Shiva and Uma his wife. They also worshipped Pornaga(?) as this society operated under a matriachal system with the property owned by the women and being handed down to the youngest daughter. There was no caste system in the Champa culture. The Champa society was finished in the 16th century when a Winh (?) lord took over.


Through the villages the sides of the roads are covered in rice. The farmers dry the rice on the bitumen. The traffic just drives around it but sometimes tyre marks are seen straight through the middle. People doing DIY jobs also mix their concrete on the road.

In the afternoon we caught the bus again and drove to Danang to catch the Reunification Express. The American airport in Danang is still contaminated with Agent Orange but the Americans are helping to fund the clean up. The train left at about 4pm and arrived at about 10pm. During the train ride, Cuong showed us a documentary of the Tet Offensive, 1968, which showed many of the places we had visited under attack by both the Viet Cong and the Americans/South vietnamese and their allies.