My Son

The My Son site is located more than 40 kilometers west of Hoi An. It is the largest religious site in the ancient Champa kingdom in Vietnam, and is known as "Vietnam's Angkor Wat". The Cham people built Hindu temples here as early as the fourth century. In the centuries that followed, the Cham people continued to expand, making it the religious land of the Cham kingdom. It is one of the oldest ruins in Southeast Asia. It was not destroyed by the Nguyen Dynasty in Vietnam until the end of the seventeenth century with the decline of the Champa Kingdom, so it was gradually abandoned. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Western archaeologists came to study the history of the Cham ethnic group, so it was protected and included in the World Heritage List. The site is built in a lush valley surrounded by mountains. About 70 Hindu temples have been built in the whole valley. The Champa's pagoda is built with red bricks. Although it is not tall, it is complex in style, reflecting the Hindu style. It is also because compared with the giant city built with boulders - Angkor Temple in Cambodia, it can't stand the test of wind and rain. It is more corroded and damaged, and some places are overgrown with weeds; Also the more, some of the carvings are better preserved.