My Son (2) Travel Guide

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My Son (pronounced Mee Sun) is a Hindu temple complex, located in the village of Duy Phú, 69km southwest of Da Nang. It comprises many Champa temples, in a valley roughly two kilometres wide, surrounded by two mountain ranges. It was the site of religious ceremony of kings of the Champa dynasty, and was also a burial place of Champa royals and national heroes between the 4th and 14th centuries. The temple complex is one of the foremost temple complexes of Hinduism in South East Asia and is the foremost heritage site of this nature in Vietnam. As of 1999, My Son has been selected by UNESCO as a world heritage listed site as a foremost evidence of Asian civilisation which is now extinct.

Altogether there are around 70 temples and tombs here which were studied, in 1899, by Henri Parmentier. He classified them into 14 groups, including 10 principal groups each consisting of multiple temples. For purposes of identification, he assigned a letter to each of these principal groups: A, A', B, C, D, E, F, G, H, K. Within each group, he assigned numbers to the edifices comprising it. Thus "My Son E1" refers to the edifice at My Son belonging to group "E" that has been assigned the number "1." All of the temples and tombs are pretty small and in various states of repair and condition due to neglect and after the Americans carpet-bombed the region in August 1969. Although they're not as impressive as the temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, they're still well worthy of a visit from Hoi An. I came here as part of a day tour from Hoi An which also included taking a boat back to Hoi An, lunch and a visit to Cam Kim Island which cost 110,000 VND with Sinh Cafe.

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You'll find several statues, lingas (phallic symbols of Shiva) and stone carvings inside one of the temples plus old mortars that were dropped here by the Americans during the Vietnam War.

My Son is a day trip from either Da Nag or Hoi Ann.

If you can get a small group together you can easily hire a private car or driver (Non Vietnamese cannot drive in Vietnam) at a reasonable price OR you could do the day tour option.

I would recommend hiring your own car and getting up early to visit the ruins before the heat of the day and the other tourist reach the site. We left our hotel in Hoi Ann at 5 AM Without hordes of tourist the site has an almost magical quality.