Our hotel room has a huge bath, I am loving it, soaking when I get home at night while Ted likes the rainfall shower (although we've got plenty of that outside now too...) We are sleeping like logs, maybe it's he heat and dehydration too, although we are drinking lots, me water, Ted beer...
Wednesday we wake to cooler, cloudier conditions, unsettled too. Which is too bad as we have booked to take a tour to the Champa ruins of 10th century My Son, about an hour away through the lovely rural countryside. The first class tourist bus there and tourist boat part of the way back, no more than 20 people, of course isn't quite up to the billing, the 30 seater bus has to be augmented with a smaller bus too, but we all have a good day out, despite the recurrent deluges.
Umbrellas and plastic capes to the fore today! Our guide Lee is barey comprehensiible but we know all the background from our wonderful guide Savuth in Siem Reap, as we have visitied a Champa tempe there. Ted wanders off - he can't understand a thing the guy says - and finds some neat things to photograph, but the ruins are in poor shape mostly.
There were about 8 temples before our American friends bombed the hell out of them, 20 remain, some being rebuilt by the Unesco team. The pink brick construction is typically Champa and the temples Hindu. The famous male appendage or linga is revered so tourists line up beside the tallest for their photographs! The female equivalent yoni is not so popular...
Rediscovered by the French in the 20th century, it sits in a gorgeous jungle setting which even the rain could not spoil.
Generally, very disappointing for a whole heritage site. Worth a visit, if nothing better to do...
It as nie to see the rural countryside. One guy cycling along with 4 pigs on a cart behind him, handsome big water buffalo grazing the gorgeous rice paddies.
A requisite stop on an island to see the local woodcarvers, very skilled young men, but all the tinets and trash otherwise. Then the half hour boat trip on the Thu Bon river, with a nice little lunch all laid out (rice with chicken and veggies, and bananas, quite good for the $15 day trip cost.
Wednesday we wake to cooler, cloudier conditions, unsettled too. Which is too bad as we have booked to take a tour to the Champa ruins of 10th century My Son, about an hour away through the lovely rural countryside. The first class tourist bus there and tourist boat part of the way back, no more than 20 people, of course isn't quite up to the billing, the 30 seater bus has to be augmented with a smaller bus too, but we all have a good day out, despite the recurrent deluges.
Umbrellas and plastic capes to the fore today! Our guide Lee is barey comprehensiible but we know all the background from our wonderful guide Savuth in Siem Reap, as we have visitied a Champa tempe there. Ted wanders off - he can't understand a thing the guy says - and finds some neat things to photograph, but the ruins are in poor shape mostly.
There were about 8 temples before our American friends bombed the hell out of them, 20 remain, some being rebuilt by the Unesco team. The pink brick construction is typically Champa and the temples Hindu. The famous male appendage or linga is revered so tourists line up beside the tallest for their photographs! The female equivalent yoni is not so popular...
Rediscovered by the French in the 20th century, it sits in a gorgeous jungle setting which even the rain could not spoil.
Generally, very disappointing for a whole heritage site. Worth a visit, if nothing better to do...
It as nie to see the rural countryside. One guy cycling along with 4 pigs on a cart behind him, handsome big water buffalo grazing the gorgeous rice paddies.
A requisite stop on an island to see the local woodcarvers, very skilled young men, but all the tinets and trash otherwise. Then the half hour boat trip on the Thu Bon river, with a nice little lunch all laid out (rice with chicken and veggies, and bananas, quite good for the $15 day trip cost.
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