My Son Sanctuary

About this place

The ruins of the main religious centre of the Champa kingdom: a cluster of red-brick Hindu temple towers in a green valley ringed by mountains, about 40 km south-west of Hoi An. The Cham kings built here from the fourth to the thirteenth century, and at its height the valley held more than seventy temples and towers, along with stelae inscribed in Sanskrit and Cham. The towers are built of fired brick laid so precisely, with barely any visible mortar, that scholars still disagree on how it was done, and they are carved with fine floral and figurative reliefs. Much of the site was destroyed by American bombing in a single week of the Vietnam War, and bomb craters are still visible; some groups have since been restored with international help, including Polish, Italian and Indian teams. UNESCO listed the site as a World Heritage Site in 1999. An electric shuttle takes visitors from the ticket gate to the temple groups, and a short show of traditional Cham dance is staged several times a day. Come at opening, before the heat and the tour groups; there is little shade.