Happy Birthday to Natalie

Today we visited the Champa ruins at My Son.  They are part of a the old Indian influenced kingdom of Champa.  Many, many centuries old.  It was quite a good trip and the site is an hour or so away from Hoi An.  It’s not a big set of temples like Angkor Wat but it was nice to go look around something really old and ruiney.  I’d been sort of missing that after last years trip.  The temple sites suffered during the Vietnam war.  Site B remained largely unscathed and you can still see the structures pretty much as they once stood.  They certainly resemble buildings.  Other sites suffered heavily during bombing in 1968 and 1970 something.  All that is left of those sites is foundations and bomb craters.  There are also practically no statues left on site as the French archaeologists who unearthed the temples removed them to a museum in Da Nang.  It’s just another reminder of how much is lost during wars.  These buildings stood for centuries undisturbed and probably largely unmolested but they can be destroyed with so little thought and effort.  Central Vietnam is lovely though.  It hasn’t rained again although it’s overcast and the temperature is much cooler here.  There’s lots of greenery and some mountains.

On a brighter note, Natalie who is on this tour is having her birthday today.  So we’ll be heading out for dinner and cake in a few hours.  Tomorrow we leave Hoi An (and its numerous shops) for Hue.  This time we go on the bus not the train (our next overnight train is in a few days).

Lizards and mice and bugs…Oh My!

We’ve now completed our first stint on the overnight trains here in Vietnam.  It was certainly an interesting experience and we have three more night trains before we’re done.  In our cabin of four we stocked up on snacks, vodka and a pack of cards to pass the time.  We boarded the train in Nha Trang for the nine hour journey to Da Nang.  As we entered our cabin we realised that the previous passengers we had just seen disembark had also felt the need to sleep in what were to be our beds for the night.  Discarding the sheets and blankets already there we managed to get a hold of some clean ones to cover our mattresses.  

After we had settled in the vodka, snacks and cards made an appearance, as did an iPod player full of dubious pop tunes.  I’m sure our travelling companions in the cabins either side of ours will agree that we are truly awesome at sing alongs.  We were also engaged in a pretty serious game of Snap!  Fingers could have been lost.  Our merriment was unfortunately interrupted by the appearance of a small mouse that decided to jump on me and crawl in my hair.  The other three occupants of the cabin screamed bloody murder and ran into the hallway.  Of course everyone still thought we were playing silly buggers (or Snap!) and didn’t come out to see what was happening.  This morning it turned out that one of the guys had found a small lizard in his bed and some of the others may have encountered bed bugs (eeeeew).  So, all in all I got about four and half hours sleep before we disembarked but I’d rather deal with a mouse than bed bugs.  After the train arrived in Da Nang we hopped on a bus and rather groggily made our way to Hoi An where we will stay today and tomorrow.

Raindrops keep falling on my head

Finally we went on our boat trip today.  It rained the whole way out to the island, which shouldn’t have been a surprise.  Once there it cleared for a while and some of us jumped in for a swim.  No snorkeling because the weather’s been rotten and there wouldn’t have been anything to see.  It was a good trip though and we were served a delicious lunch on board. 

Tonight we board our first overnight train.  Four to a small cabin it travels through the night, taking us further north.  It leaves just after 8pm and arrives in Da Nang about 5/6am.  From Da Nang we take a bus for another hour or so to reach our final destination Hoi An.  We’ve got two days in Hoi An and apparently the weather is rubbish there too.  Hopefully it will clear but we just have to wait and see.