Five flavours: Day 6 Hoi An

Soundtrack: The Hoi An Memories show music

Today started way too early, as I’d booked us into a tour of My Son Sanctuary and surrounds. There were two choices, the 5am start to beat the heat, or the 7.30am, so I went with the 5am. FYI My Son is pronounced “mee son”.

Our guide had the indecency of being on time. I’d managed to quickly drink a can of coffee so I was vaguely conscious for the drive through Hoi An picking up the rest of the tour. Then is was about an hour out to My Son via the local twisting roads. For part of this our guide gave us a bit of information about the place.

Back before the Europeans came to this part of the world and made a mess of things, the locals were mostly managing to do this themselves. Central Vietnam was part of the Champa Kingdom. The Cham were Hindu, so worshipped Shiva, Ganesh, Vishnu, and deities like that. They also spent a bunch of time being preoccupied with genitalia, and their worship involved many symbolic representations of lingam and yoni. This included building tall narrow temples, some of which have been restored at the My Son Sanctuary. In addition to being really old, part of the mystery around My Son is how they were able to bind bricks together without mortar or cement.

Our tour included coffee on arrival, so after a quick caffeine boost we were on our way: they have a bunch of electronic buggies to take visitors most of the way, then it’s a short walk to the temples. We had a bit of time to discover the area for ourselves, before our guide then took over and pointed out a bunch of things. The temples at My Son were built for royalty, not for common folks to worship. As such, these were tricked out with all the carvings and decorations to make them for for a king. The Cham built their temples in groups of five, so there’d be an entry temple, then a small central temple where the king and queen would wait, while the priests would do their priestly things in he main temple, the one dedicated to Shiva and that had no windows, it was very important that they not have windows. Here the priests would pour water and other liquids over the lingam, and catch it after it flowed out of the yoni, before then using this to bless the royalty and stuff. Make of that, and all the symbolism, what you will.

There are a number of groups of temples throughout the My Son, as various kings decided they needed to have their own temples built to show their devotion. If it turns out that subsequent temples had to be built taller than the one before, I would not be surprised.

Our guide described the process behind making the bricks stick together. They were formed from mostly clay, but with some extra ingredients. First given a short bake, they were then transported to My Son, and the temples assembled. Once done, the buildings were covered in flammable items like cut trees and leaves, before the whole lot was set on fire and allowed to burn for 3 days. At the end of this time some magical bonding had taken place and presto, no need for mortar. The guide also took great pains to show us how level and identical in height each layer of bricks was. Definitely a job that require many decent brick molds and some skilled hands.

Around the early 19th century the Cham were pushed out of the area by the mainstream Vietnamese. The temples were then forgotten and allowed to fall into disrepute. This was hastened during the American War, when as legend has it local insurgents would hide among the temples, so to stop this the US and South redecorated using heave ordnance. Since then extensive restoration work has been done to some of the temples, while the more bombed ones wait their turn.

We paused on our stroll back for some pics among a lotus pond. Then it was breakfast, some my quang noodles with chicken in a wonderful, flavourful chicken broth, along with a crunchy piece of sesame sprinkled flat rice cake. My quang noodles are made from rice and have a chewy texture.

The tour continued with a stop at a local home/farm where we had a demonstration of how to make rice paper. It’s pretty ingenious really. First rice liquid is made through soaking a kilo of rice in a litre of water, this is then added to a grinding stone (if being traditional) or an electric grinder. Pummel until you have a smooth liquid. Incidentally the old school rice grinder looks a little similar to the whole Cham lingam and yoni thing, just it’s yoni and more yoni. From here take an ingeniously constructed oven, big enough to fit a big round pot of water. Over this a cotton sheet is spread, then ladle at a time add the rice liquid. Spread it out, let it steam for a minute or so, then lift it off with a towel wrapped around length of PVC, making sure not to double it around as it’ll then stick to itself and that’s just no fun for anyone. Then put it down and allow to dry. Repeat often and ou have some very tasty snacks. I had a turn at it and did okay, though our demonstrator did a lot of the work. It’s not ideal for folks that wear glasses, as the steam will find you, it’s also a bit more challenging when some strange person (not from our tour) is holding their gopro about 20cm away from where I was trying not to stuff things up.

From here it was back to Hoi An for a short boat ride. While I’d only really wanted to book a tour of My Son, there didn’t seem to be any with just that, every tour has value add-ons like local performances, boat rides, things like that. After crossing a slightly precarious plank and ledge, we boarded our boat and set off down the river to the old town. This included an opportunity for some pics at the front of the boat, and not wanting to go for a cliche, L and I decided on the surfing pose. Hypothetically speaking, further excitement ensued when a water police boat was sighted, allegedly leading to a bit of a hurried distribution of life vests to all the passengers. In this hypothetical account, we had mostly donned these by the time the police boat pulled alongside and two police boarded. They then had a bit of a discussion with the captain, inspected his papers and had a look around the boat, before getting back on their own boat and leaving. The captain stayed grinning the whole time, and my handful of Vietnamese didn’t cover what was discussed, so I have no idea what the outcome was. I didn’t see any money changing hands, and I’m sure such a thing would never occur in Viet Nam, a country I love travelling to and want to come back to again. We continued our boat ride, the captain still grinning, before finishing the tour not far from our hotel.

Then it was nap time.

Refreshed we headed back out in the direction of Be Be 2 for our first fitting. We had plenty of time so stopped in a little cafe along the main tourist street, and had one of those wonderful asian things, avocado smoothies. Creamy avocado blended with coconut milk, thick and cool and found almost everywhere. So much better than a fastfood thickshake, and also this is Viet Nam, so you’ll never get told that they can’t make them due to the machine being broken. We also had some fresh rice paper spring rolls, served with a spicy creamy dipping sauce, crisp and delicious. Of course we were in the heart of tourist town, surrounded by men in ugly shorts and women in silk-satin dresses clustered under blossom trees for their IG shots, so the prices were suitably elevated, though still cheap by Australian standards.

Despite getting old and remembering less and less, I know I’ve waxed lyrical in these pages about how Hoi An makes things. If you want something made, just come here. If you want something made well and fast, come here with a good recommendation. Be Be 2 make clothes good and fast, by the time we got there they had most of yesterday’s order ready for us to try on for size and to make any adjustments. Much of L’s order was ready to try, and while my linen pants were ready there was a slight wait for some shirts. I didn’t mind, I got to sit in their recently refurbished air-conditioned change rooms, and met their apologies with “khong sau” which made them smile: after learning local words for thank you and hello, it’s good to learn “no problem”, especially for countries where Saving face is a concern.

My shirts arrived and also fit well, nice and loose for travelling in countries like Viet Nam. Everyone was amuse at m stretching routine, making sure I could swing my arms and reach above my head, because no one — not even in asian countries where white skin is admired and envied — really wants to see my belly when I’m reaching to get something off a high shelf, I may have also hammed thing sup, striking a pose or two. I really need to work on my blue steel and smolder.

Fitted, and an appointment to come back tomorrow for the rest of the items, we stopped into our other regular tailors, Yaly, to get some other clothes made. They also recognised us from previous trips, and were generally happy and keeping busy, which is good. I had an idea for a “special” linen shirt come to me when I woke up, so I thought I’d get them to make it. Wait and see on that one. Yaly made the linen print t-shirt you can see in today’s pics, but sadly they’ve run out of that linen — definitely sad as that print is great for hiding just how much I’m sweating.

Measured up, fabrics chosen we headed to a shoe shop so L could get some footwear to coordinate with her new clothes. While I would have loved to get some shoes made, these days my aging knees seem to appreciate supportive soles. While we’ve found they make very good quality and beautiful shoes here, the soles tend to be a bit generic. Maybe next trip if I prepare and bring some extra supportive insoles, I can get a pair made that will incorporate this, worth a thought.

We had some time before our evening pans so it was off to possibly our favourite Hoi An bar, the Market Bar. We snuck in just at the end of happy hour (which goes for 2 hours) so were shortly sitting back and sipping on a couple of fishbowl gin and tonics (or should that be grammatically gins and tonic, I don’t know, probably why it’s easier to say g&ts). Mine was infused with Da Lat roses, and was delicious as the tonic didn’t overpower the gin — I don’t mind gin, but some tonics just ruin the drink. Sometimes too much bitterness is not a good thing. So there were no pics of grimaces, just smiling faces enjoying a big cool drink.

Suitably fortified, we headed along the river to meet R and J and catch the Hoi An Memories show. R works with L, and J is her husband, but like to travel so we had some good conversation — J has just been buying up big on some of the “lego-compatible” sets they have here. They were previously in Da Nang checking out the fireworks competition, apparently the final will be between China and Portugal.

The Hoi An Memories show. It’s a fairly new thing, and one we’d so far managed to avoid, as it just seemed to be some sort of over the top kitschy performance event. And it pretty much is, but we hadn’t stopped to appreciate that when VN goes over the top and kitschy, they go all the way. It’s an amazing spectacle set in a purpose-built location that has it’s own large pool/small lake, rows of housing sets, two boat sets (not counting the boats that are rowed on the lake), a cable set up so an actor can descend from one of the boats, an array of large wheeled props that can appear when the crowd are looking elsewhere, and a cast of hundreds. There are huge jets of flame at various times (the seating groups could easily be described as rare, medium, and well done: we were up the back of the stadium and even in the warm night I was reaching to check if my eyebrows were still there). There must be kilometres of floor LED strips weaving through the stage. There’s a spray fountain that has images projected onto it. Actors riding LED illuminated bicycles, illuminated non la (though these sadly only seemed to illuminate a single colour, it I find one that does the whole spectrum I might have to get it), wearing flowing ao dais (not illuminated unfortunately), carrying illuminated musical instruments, others wearing illuminated head pieces, it was a Spectacle. Houses and bridges appeared and disappeared, a huge prop elephant appeared at one stage, there were water fights in the lake, dancers, an actor who spent much of the performance using a prop weaving machine and wearing a huge satin frock, only to end up on a platform that raises out of the ground. There were even times when actors in au dais moved around the LED paths in a walk not dis-similar to that of drag queen Discord Addams. There were lights, music, it was a Spectacle. Was it over the top? It went over the top in so many ways. I wouldn’t be surprised if we go back on subsequent visits, it’s a fun way to spend an evening.

We finished with a stroll back along the river to a little Thai stall that R and J have been frequenting. Good food, reasonably priced, and river views. Sure I’ll be eating plenty of Thai food next week, so I considered this a teaser. Also it was Thursday night, and back home that’s usually Thai night. I had a tasty pad see ew, some wonderful salty noodles and greens with chicken. Not really Thai spicy, I could have used the table condiments for that. L and I also shared a mango sticky rice that was decent. Then we said our goodnights and headed back to the hotel, where our clean laundry was waiting for us.

Tomorrow’s a relaxing day, a sleep in, some fittings, massage, and good food. Maybe even the happy hour at the Market Bar.