Having spent yesterday relaxing a bit we had renewed energy today to go exploring. We rented a scooter at the homestay and headed for the beach which is only a few kilometres away. Not to stay at the beach but just to check it out for our planned beach day tomorrow.
It was busy once we got there late in the morning but walking a bit away from the parking lot and things seemed a lot more quiet. Perfect for us tomorrow. Back on the scooter we drove towards My Son - the jungle temple area close to Hoi An. According to Google Maps it was around 40 kilometres away and following the suggested route on Maps we were taken through narrow local roads, villages and a few dirt tracks on our way towards My Son. Around 10 kilometres from My Son we stopped for lunch at a place next to the road side. Local food, limited menu but good.
Then we continued the last bit of the way to My Son and found the main entrance. It was hot in the afternoon and very quiet with only a few parked cars and some scooters. We left ours, bought tickets, walked to the shuttle bus and were dropped off for the walk around the main temple area.
It is not Angkor Wat (not even remotely close) or some of the other temple areas we've seen in Myanmar, but it is nice, well maintained and the ruins are really pretty when you also take into account that they were damaged during the war and restoration has only been going on for a decade or so. Not many people in the afternoon which we found really nice.
We spent around 1½ hours at the temples, then back to the main entrance and spending just a short time at the excellent exhibition at the museum. It might have deserved a closer look but we also had around 1½ hours of driving ahead of us to get back to Hoi An, so we headed home and went directly down town to look for one of the tour companies hoping to book another easy rider trip from Hoi An to Hue.
As we stopped to get directions we bumped into Julie and Jen from last night and as we stood there sharing the experiences of the day a local guy pointed at the rear wheel of our scooter - flat tire. Good timing though being so close to home. Mikkel managed to push the scooter back to the homestay and we met there and searched for another office with easy riders. Eventually we found a place but nobody home. We headed home for showers, clean clothing and a dinner cooked by the nice lady at our homestay. Long day and lots of experiences and a both feeling a bit tired we still managed to do a short walk to a local bar serving the Vietnamese "Fresh beer" - or draught beer to us Europeans. But it sounds great with fresh beer - and it tastes good too.
It was busy once we got there late in the morning but walking a bit away from the parking lot and things seemed a lot more quiet. Perfect for us tomorrow. Back on the scooter we drove towards My Son - the jungle temple area close to Hoi An. According to Google Maps it was around 40 kilometres away and following the suggested route on Maps we were taken through narrow local roads, villages and a few dirt tracks on our way towards My Son. Around 10 kilometres from My Son we stopped for lunch at a place next to the road side. Local food, limited menu but good.
Then we continued the last bit of the way to My Son and found the main entrance. It was hot in the afternoon and very quiet with only a few parked cars and some scooters. We left ours, bought tickets, walked to the shuttle bus and were dropped off for the walk around the main temple area.
It is not Angkor Wat (not even remotely close) or some of the other temple areas we've seen in Myanmar, but it is nice, well maintained and the ruins are really pretty when you also take into account that they were damaged during the war and restoration has only been going on for a decade or so. Not many people in the afternoon which we found really nice.
We spent around 1½ hours at the temples, then back to the main entrance and spending just a short time at the excellent exhibition at the museum. It might have deserved a closer look but we also had around 1½ hours of driving ahead of us to get back to Hoi An, so we headed home and went directly down town to look for one of the tour companies hoping to book another easy rider trip from Hoi An to Hue.
As we stopped to get directions we bumped into Julie and Jen from last night and as we stood there sharing the experiences of the day a local guy pointed at the rear wheel of our scooter - flat tire. Good timing though being so close to home. Mikkel managed to push the scooter back to the homestay and we met there and searched for another office with easy riders. Eventually we found a place but nobody home. We headed home for showers, clean clothing and a dinner cooked by the nice lady at our homestay. Long day and lots of experiences and a both feeling a bit tired we still managed to do a short walk to a local bar serving the Vietnamese "Fresh beer" - or draught beer to us Europeans. But it sounds great with fresh beer - and it tastes good too.
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| Red Lightning |
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| Checking out the beach |
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| At the entrance to My Son |
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| Temples and ruins |
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| Impressive inscriptions |
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| Late afternoon temple |
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| Exhibition of impressive carved stones |
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| Yes, we've done a lot of those places on this trip |
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| Hungry scooter |
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| Heading home on local roads |
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| Dinner at the homestay |
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| Coffee-ish |
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| Fresh beer |
