26 July 2018, Thursday

This morning, at the invitation of my homestay hosts, I woke up very early and joined them for a game of beach volleyball. At 5:20am, I left the guest house with the father and son of the house and we drove to An Bang Beach, a short 10-minute drive away.

An Bang is a beautiful white sand beach stretching over four kilometres. It is located north of Cua Dai Beach, another popular beach that is slightly shorter at three kilometres but closer to Hội An Ancient Town.

The sun was just creeping over the horizon at 5:35am yet the beach was already full of people swimming in the sea and jogging on the sand. Evidently, coming here for morning exercise was a very popular activity among the locals. It was a cloudy day but we were still blessed to witness a beautiful sunrise.

Soon, we were joined by many more of my host’s friends. They are all regulars and they come here every morning to play volleyball without fail. As there were about 15 of us, we split into three teams. The winning team stayed on while the losing team was replaced by the third team for the subsequent game, i.e. Winners stay; Losers out.

It had been years since I last played beach volleyball – perhaps the last time was during my National Service days over a decade ago. I was definitely rusty and not up to their standard. Initially, I was too shy to join in and I only sat by the sidelines to watch them play. However, at the encouragement and insistence of my host and his friends, I eventually joined in and played two games. It was certainly fun and I really enjoyed myself, even though I was responsible for losing many points for my team.

At the end of the session, we all took a dip in the sea. The water was not too cold, and it was very refreshing. After that, we took a quick shower before heading back to the guest house, where I had a relaxing breakfast.

At 8:35am, a minibus came by the guest house to pick me up for my excursion to Mỹ Sơn Sanctuary, located about 40km away from Hội An Ancient Town. We picked up a few other guests along the way and arrived at 9:43am. We also had a local English-speaking guide for the tour.

Mỹ Sơn Sanctuary is a cluster of ancient Hindu temples built between the 4^th and 13^th centuries. It was the religious and political capital of the Champa Kingdom. The Cham people are an ethnic minority in Vietnam today but at the height of the Champa reign during the 9^th and 10^th centuries, it was a formidable kingdom occupying large swathes of coastal areas in central and southern Vietnam. Mỹ Sơn Sanctuary was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999.

By the way, Mỹ Sơn is pronounced as “méi sēn” (as annotated in Hanyu Pinyin), not “my son”. Mỹ means “beauty” while Sơn means “mountain”, so collectively the name Mỹ Sơn means “the beauty of the mountain”. The sanctuary is located in a valley with a natural spring connecting to the Thu Bồn River and surrounded by mountains. This valley was chosen because of the spiritual significance of the site. To the Cham people, the mountain to the south symbolised Mahaparvata, the Hindu God Shiva, while the natural spring and sacred river symbolised Mahanadi, the Hindu God Ganga, wife of God Shiva.

Mỹ Sơn Sanctuary comprises 71 temples and structures spread out over 142 hectares of land. In the early 20^th century, a French archaeologist named Henri Parmentier discovered the ruins and categorised the monuments in groups from A to N. Within each group, each temple was assigned a number, e.g. A1, A2 etc. From the main entrance, we walked a short distance before hopping on to a buggy for a 10-minute ride to the Group B cluster, and we continued visiting the other groups from there.

Each group had a typical structure with a major temple (kalan) in the centre, in which, linga of the God Shiva as well as statues of Hindu Gods and Goddesses were worshipped. Linga, or lingam, is the symbolic image of Shiva and it represents energy and strength. It typically comprises of a square base representing Brahma (the creator), an octagonal mid-section representing Vishnu (the preserver) and a round top representing Shiva (the destroyer).

The linga is usually set into a round or rectangular base called yoni, its female counterpart, the symbolic representation of the Goddess Shakti. Even though the shape of the linga resembles a phallus and the shape of the yoni resembles a woman’s womb, the linga-yoni should be taken as a symbol of the divine eternal process of creation and regeneration.

Each temple complex had a number of monuments that could be a major temple and satellite temples, separated from the surrounding areas by an enclosing wall. The temples and towers had different functions, making it a unique sacrificial and worship sanctuary. The Cham people came here only to worship and they did not live here. It was also reserved for the kings, and commoners were not allowed to enter.

The earliest temples built in the 4^th century were constructed of wood. However, they were destroyed by fire so the first kings decided to build the subsequent structures using red bricks. After Henri Parmentier discovered the site in 1903, his team managed to restore some of the structures. Unfortunately, Mỹ Sơn Sanctuary was heavily bombed by the Americans during the Vietnam War in 1969 as the Viet Cong base was in the area. We could still see the bomb craters around Group E and F, a sad remnant of the war.

At 12:25pm, we finished our visit of Mỹ Sơn Sanctuary. To be honest, it wasn’t as impressive as the ruins at Siem Reap in Cambodia because the complex is much smaller and there are fewer structures here. But then again, how many ancient temple complexes in the world can be compared with those at Siem Reap? Perhaps just a handful. Therefore, if you manage your expectations, you will find a visit to Mỹ Sơn Sanctuary an enjoyable and fruitful experience.

Our tour also included a boat ride down the Thu Bồn River back to Hội An Ancient Town. At 1:08pm, we transferred to a small wooden boat, where we were served a simple lunch of rice with long beans, carrots and tau kwa (tofu). Drinks like beer and lemon tea were optional at your own expense at VND 20,000 per can.

The scenery along the river was nothing special, but it was a nice alternative to sitting in a cramped minivan. We arrived at Hội An Ancient Town at 1:57pm. I then went back to my room to have a shower and chilled for the rest of the afternoon.

At 6:15pm, I headed out again to the Night Market to look for food. The first thing that caught my eye was a stall selling Chả giò, or Vietnamese fried spring roll. The un-fried version that is commonly eaten as an appetiser is called Gỏi cuốn. But I love fried food, so this Chả giò was perfect for me.

The difference between Vietnamese and Chinese spring rolls is that the Vietnamese version uses a wrapper that is made of thinner rice paper so it is translucent, while the Chinese version uses a thicker rice paper wrapper so it is opaque. I paid VND 20,000 (S$1.20) for my Chả giò and it was divine.

Next, I tried thịt nướng, which means grilled meat. It was a skewer of marinated pork meat cubes together with slices of red and green peppers, onions and lady’s fingers. I bought a stick of pork skewer for VND 30,000 (S$1.80) and also a strip of grilled pork for VND 70,000 (S4.20). Ooooh, it was so sinful but oh, so good!

To balance the heatiness of all the fried and grilled food, I bought a cup of freshly-pressed sugar cane juice for VND 20,000. It tasted slightly different from the one back home, but was refreshing nonetheless.

Every month during the full moon, Hội An celebrates the occasion with a lantern festival. Very luckily, it happened to be the Lantern Festival today so I got to experience a special moment. As I approached Thu Bồn River, I saw that it was filled with floating paper lanterns lit with candles.

There were also lanterns on the small wooden boats so the water was full of bobbing lights, creating a magical sight. They were doing a roaring trade as visitors clambered onto the boats to enjoy a serene ride amidst all the colourful lanterns. To accentuate the beauty of the lanterns on the river and those hanging on the buildings, the street lights were dimmed. The general area became rather dark, which made it difficult to take good pictures with my iPhone.

With the Lantern Festival taking place, the atmosphere tonight was especially lively. A crowd had gathered around the riverfront and I heard loud cheering and clapping noises so I went over to investigate. I discovered that the source of the commotion was from the Pot-Breaking Game.

The aim of the game was to use a wooden stick to smash a small hanging clay pot while being blindfolded. The person making the attempt could only rely on the spectators’ verbal instructions to take aim and hopefully strike the pot successfully with one swing. It was so funny to watch the poor person figure out which way to go as the surrounding people kept shouting conflicting commands: “To your left! No, more to your right! Higher! Lower!” And when the person finally swung the stick and came up short, it is just super hilarious. I could watch it forever.

I rounded off the night with a bowl of dessert. I had seen several stalls selling it and I was dying to try it. I saw that there were a few different options listed on the menu but they were all written in Vietnamese, so I just gestured “one” to the seller and I got a bowl of tapioca balls and assorted jelly topped with coconut milk and some crushed ice. It cost VND 20,000 (S$1.20) and it was yummy.

Overall, it had been a pretty fulfilling day in Hội An – watching the sunrise and playing beach volleyball at An Bang Beach, followed by a visit to the ruined temple complex at Mỹ Sơn Sanctuary, and ending with the Lantern Festival, more street food and entertainment at the Night Market. One more day in Hội An tomorrow before I leave on another overnight bus to Nha Trang next!