My Son

From Hoi An a short bus ride will take you to My Son, the most impressive Cham site in Vietnam. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking:

Our stalkers - Stefan and Katja. Here we see them and Harvey doing their version of Cham traditional dancing (the Cham are doing it in a special tourist hall behind this unlikely trio). We left the Cham and their 100 spectators after 2 minutes to see the sites before the hordes descended. There was a particular repetitive chanting that sounded uncannily like 'Ha Vey, Ha Vey'.

The eerie sacrificial altar. You can guess what the groove is for.

The faceless remains of the Cham gods, eroded by time to leave just an impression for future generations. The Vietnamese Cham people came from Indonesia, and later Malaysia. Their religion was a form of Hinduism and the temples here feature Shiva and Ganesh amongst others.

The cry goes up. There's a superstar in town. Bigger than Beckham. Posher than Spice. It's... Ha Vey! Ha Vey!

We returned to Hoi An by boat, stopping at a small village along the way (that happened to have a big carpentry workshop). Harvey and I went for a wander instead of shopping for wooden chairs and statues, taking some photos as we strolled.

Women working at the quayside in Hoi An.