My Son, Vietnam

We had decided to drive, actually to be driven, from Hue to Hoi An, via the Hai Van pass, Da Nang and My Son.  We had been hoping to leave the rainy, cloudy north of Vietnam behind and emerge into sunshine on the pass and have a fantastic view!  It wasn't to be…….heavy rain, no view! And now I see that the old french name for the pass was Col des Nuages….or  Cloud mountain!! So we would have been incredibly lucky to be able to see anything!

We drove on Highway 1, which is the main highway from Hue to Saigon, which was unbelievable in terms of traffic….. a 2 lane road, one lane either way! No wonder it takes 24 hours to reach Saigon. We kept having buses overtake us… thankfully our driver didn't try to compete!

We stopped to see some fishing boats which are used to fish the very large lagoon just south of Hue… I actually thought we had got to the sea…..

 Water buffalos were grazing just off the road…..

and there were lots of oysters for sale….

Then we went over the pass……absolutely no view until we were about half way down on the south side……….

The fishing nets  they use are surprising…. they are extremely large and they lower them into the water to catch the fish overnight..….

We wanted to visit the Cham museum in Da Nang which is just by the Dragon bridge…. on which there seemed to be few cars, but lots of motorbikes…...

We wanted to visit this museum to see what had been rescued from the My Son area before going there…….it is a fantastic museum, which gives an insight into the Cham culture…..

We needed to have lunch  and decided to go to China Beach……

Yes…..this is pronounced close to what you think it might be!!

The view was superb….. but not the food!  The restaurant was basically empty and we understood why once we got our bill!  A very expensive lunch…. I think we were paying for the empty seats at out table!!

Then on to My Son…. which actually was quite a large area which took about 2 hours to walk around…. but the sun was finally out!

 Some artifacts were assembled in this temple, plus a few US bombs!  Only when reading a notice there did we find out that one should not step off the walkways as there are a lot of still unexploded land mines!!  We had been walking for quite a time by then….. and not always on the path!

 My Son was almost totally destroyed by US B52 bombers!

It had been a very, very long day so we were happy to finally get to our hotel in Hoi An….
the Vinh Hung Emerald Resort…..
We had booked a river view room……. which was great.

We found a good restaurant close by, Mango Mango, which we can recommend.

And where we had a fantastic night time view of the Japanese bridge...

Hue……… the Tombs!

We did, of course, have to visit the Royal Tombs just outside of Hue…….

First was  the tomb of Tu Duc…….
This has a beautiful lake and it was very pleasant walking around…...

It had been a summer palace for the king and so had some beautiful buildings…...

guarded by mandarins….

….. next was the tomb of Khai Dinh…….. this had a lot of steps…..very steep steps!

and at the top one arrives in a courtyard with civil and military figures, all standing guard...…...

and the inevitable serpentine railing…..

This was a rather gloomy tomb area!

Then on to the next...  the Minh Mang tomb which was situated on another beautiful lake……

….very different roofs…...

…..beautiful and peaceful….....

Hue….. a little city sightseeing, Imperial city that is!

The capital of Vietnam was moved in 1802 from Hanoi to Hue…… and the Forbidden Purple City was used by the kings until 1945….. although they were under the French from just 33 years after they built the Imperial city.


However now the Citadel is mainly destroyed…. the destruction was somewhat  by the Vietnamese themselves during the Tet offensive in 1968 as the Viet Cong used it as a bunker and that made it a target for US bombers.
Our guide actually spent his summers market gardening in these formal gardens and lived in this particular house when his grandfather was the caretaker for the palace in the 70's!!!!  Not bad!

It was still very interesting to explore it, despite its lack of buildings, only 10 of the original 160 buildings remain…. and  to see just  how immense it is/was….….

and to appreciate somewhat how it might have looked when the kings resided there…..
…. the gates were definitely left standing…….

After one enters the main gate one walks over the Golden Water bridge…..

and is  then faced with the Palace of Supreme Harmony…….

then one can go to visit the Pavilion of Splendour

This particular gate…….

 ….. had amazing detail…….

serpents were of course everywhere….

some of the remaining buildings were not in good condition…..

the turtle does seem to be a favorite animal…...

we are happy to see the end in sight…… it is 2km by 2 km and we had gone from one side to the other and had meandered from side to side…….

We also visited the Perfume Pagoda…..

lots of life size guardians of the temple….

and a very different Buddha! Looks as though he is on his cell phone!

We saw the same type of turtle stele that we had seen in Hanoi….. this apparently relates the history of the Pagoda.

…we would have liked to have come in one of the dragon boats …..…..

We did have a great dinner later on at the MGallery hotel in their Le Parfum restaurant..
We opted to eat on their garden terrace overlooking the Perfume river which was fantastic……

as was the food……

We can absolutely recommend!!