Day 80: November 8, 2014

Breakfast this morning was once again at the hotel, and today I had some fresh fruit along with an omelet. We met our tour guide at 8am, and we hopped on a bus to head to My Son, which are Cham ruins. Unlike Angkor Wat, which were Buddhist temples, these were Hindu temples. While they were not nearly impressive as the temples at Angkor, it's still amazing to think that these were built so long ago and survived a war. The French rediscovered the temples in the 19th century, surrounded by jungle. During the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong used the temples kind of like a hideaway because they are situated in between the mountains. This led to a lot of bombings to happen in the area, which did end up causing a lot of the temples to either be demolished or severely destroyed.

We spent some time looking at the temples with our tour guide, and then we had half an hour to look around by ourselves. Instead of continuing to look at the temples, I decided to go watch a Cham traditional dance. It was very interesting to see how their dances worked and to listen to the music that accompanied them. The temples themselves were also a very interesting experience simply because our group was by far the youngest group of tourists there. Nowhere else in Vietnam have I seen so many older people touring!

After our tour of My Son, we got back on the bus to head to Hoi An. We had lunch at Bale Well, which consisted of barbequed pork, spring rolls, and banh xeo all wrapped up in rice paper with fresh greens and herbs with mango pudding for dessert. It was all very good, and the woman who owns the restaurant actually came out to talk to us after our meal was over. Because we went in a bigger group, the people working there didn't charge Chris and Vien to eat because tour guides, or people who bring groups to this restaurant, don't have to pay to eat. How strange! With lunch over, we headed to the tailor to try on our clothes one last time. The shorts I ordered fit absolutely perfectly, and they packaged them up so I could take them with me.

The mountains behind the Champa ruins.

Decorations of the Hindu temples.

Champa ruins: Hindu temples with mountains in the background.

The next activity for the day was lantern making, and we got on the bus and headed to this small lantern factory on some back road of Hoi An. We got a chance to see their factory before trying our own hand at making lanterns. Thankfully, the structure of the lantern was complete and we just had to glue on the fabric. It was a slow process for us, and involved gluing, tightening the fabric, cutting the excess, and adding bands around the top. But the end result was great! Not only did we get to make a lantern to our liking, but we also get to take it back with us.

We had some free time before supper, so I headed out to the market to buy some souvenirs. Back at the hotel, the security guards were picking star fruit from a tree and gave me one. What a sour fruit! At 6pm we met up for supper and headed to a buffet, provided for by Loyola. It was at a very nice resort, was outside, and had live music. The buffet was seafood based, so I had a lot of fish and shrimp. The fruit, especially the mango, was fantastic. When we had all eaten until stomachs were full, we got back in a taxi and headed to the hotel.