Champa Champa
Trip Start
Sep 17, 2007
1
137
272
Trip End
Oct 08, 2008
Hoi An,
Vietnam
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
They aren't very big or in fact very impressive, but the location is beautiful: lush forests, trickling streams, and a frozen-wave of a mountain in the background. We took a tour, which included a bus and guide. Our guide is of the common SE Asia type. He never leaves the bus. He'll be very informative about the towns you pass to get to the site. Then he'll say, "be back in an hour and a half." Some guide.
I liked the ruins, mostly because of the atmosphere. The carved buildings are covered in moss and rise up out of the trees. The photos came out well, but mostly they were chosen because they didn't have any people in them
ruined ruins
. It's quite an art, actually, to keep giant tour groups out of your photos. They always wear white or other bright colors, and the guide (they have real ones) will always stand directly in front of points of interest and talk for a good half hour. Then, just when you think the last oblivious tourists will get out of the way, another tour group arrives and you have to start over. There should be a button called "remove oblivious tourists" in Photoshop. Sorry, I'm a little bitter. The other interesting thing about the site was that my countrymen did everything in their power to destroy it. The largest temple on the site, supposedly quite fantastic, resisted all American bombing. Undaunted, a helicopter-born sapper team was sent to knock it down. To be fair, the site was a Viet Cong stronghold, but couldn't they agree to play nice with priceless historical sites? The main complex (which is about all that's left) was pretty lucky. About 3 meters from the edge of the square is an enormous bomb crater.
The buildings were nice and finely carved. There were also several linga lying about, always good for a photo. I learned all about the buildings (Erin insisted) but I only listened a little. Check out the photos.
That night we took a night bus further south to Nha Trang. It was a pretty awful bus ride. Buses, of all the modes of transportation, have the loudest horns. Perhaps they feel that their size requires it. But if you have to cover your ears, outside AND INSIDE of a bus, when it blows it's horn, then IT'S TOO LOUD. And if your driver seems to use his horn whenever he sees a car or motorcycle, regardless of whether it's moving or in any way relevant, then he should be strung up by his toenails. Needless to say we didn't get much sleep. We stopped for dinner around midnight, and our bus broke down around 2 in the morning. We were quite relieved to make it to the beach the next morning.
~Travis
