Chan May and My Son, Vietnam

November 17, 2023

We’re still on our way to Chan May as we awaken, scheduled to dock for an overnight at 12:00. It was a
leisurely breakfast and then bridge that we’d set up for 9:30. Some tours were being rescheduled
because there were some monsoon rains yesterday and roads and villages were flooded. The forecast
called for 80 degrees and thunderstorms, so we packed umbrella, raincoat for me, rain ponchos if
needed, hats, and plenty of water.

Our bus pulled out at 12:15 on the dot with about 25 of us going about 2 hours inland through the
longest tunnel in SE Asia (6.3 km), through some small towns with buildings quite close to the road, past numerous cemeteries spread as far as we could see, on bumpy and narrow roads along with lots of
motorcycles, other buses, and trucks. Our bus driver drove with his horn (sounded like a truck’s air
horn) and people always gave him the right of way. We drove in and out of rain, heading into the
mountains whose tops were hidden by heavy clouds.

Our tour guide, Lam, is a young-looking vivacious man who was full of information and even wandered down the aisle numerous times asking if we had any questions for him to answer. The PA system on the bus was a bit muffled which made note-taking even more intense, but his energy and enthusiasm was contagious.

So where did we go and how does one pronounce it? My Son (Mee Sohn) literally means “beautiful
mountain” and refers to the tall mountain behind the sanctuary area whose top was shrouded and
where people believed the gods lived.

Having no expectations for this tour and having not researched it at all, I was perhaps as flabbergasted
to find this as the French soldiers were in 1885. They immediately called in some archeologists, tore
away the centuries of green jungle, and discovered a community of Hindu temples and towers believed
to have been built in the 7th or 8th Century. Apparently, there is no evidence of mortar between the
ancient bricks. It was pointed out numerous times that the recently rebuilt sections all have moss and
mold growing heavily while the old brick from the 7 th century remains free o0f growth. Our guide
explained this was due to the cements used to join the bricks in the rebuilt walls. Miraculously, one can
still see evidence of engraving, statues, frescoes, areas for purification, stelae, etc. Unfortunately, the
North Vietnamese Army used the area to hide its weapons and the US bombed around it to drive them
out, so some of the structures have had a rough recent life.