My Son Sanctuary Vietnam - Amazing Champa Temples near Hoi An | Day Trip Vlog

Hey guys Right now we are in Misun, which is the World Heritage Site not far away from Hoi An. 40 kilometers with the scooter So I took over a good hour with the scooter to get here. We decided to come by ourselves instead of a tour There are tours being offered like, you know, the typical or Yator in the city or so forth But yeah, we took a ride because we just want to have our own time schedule here Because we thought we would take longer than the tour, which is not the case. It's indeed not as big And excuse us if we're like out of breath the whole time and sweating because it's so hot. It is 36 degrees and we're dying The Misun Sanctuary dates from the 4th to the 13th century CE It's located in the mountainous area of central Vietnam about one hour away from Hoi An by car or scooter As a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it housed more than 70 Hindu temples built during the Champa Kingdom The Cham people were a Hindu civilization and predated the country of Vietnam during a time of tribes, kingdoms and small settlements The Misun Sanctuary was one of the most important sites of the civilization and served as a place of worship with Shiva as its primal God This place is often described as Vietnam's Angkor Wat and you can easily see and feel the resemblance An almost forgotten civilization, its ruins hidden away in the mountains and jungles The vibrant red bricks of the ancient temples stand out strikingly against a lush green landscape Creating a breathtaking scene that captivates anyone whether you're a history enthusiast or not After driving one hour on our scooter We walk through the visitory center of Misun towards the electric cars, which would bring us further into the site Even if you're not part of a tour group just like us Use the cars as the sanctuary is still a bit away and the road offers almost no shade in the burning heat There are several different grounds to look around and depending on the time you visit You might catch one of the traditional chum dance performances These 15-minute shows are held several times throughout the day and you can check online when the next one is up The sanctuary is divided into temple ground clusters with different letters The group BCD is arguably the most important and best preserved one in Misun Dedicated to the God Shiva the temples contain intricate carvings and sculptures depicting deities Celestial dancers and various mythological scenes. The temples were used for religious ceremonies including rituals and offerings You will notice most tourists walking around this place and you can even go into some of the structures Inside the inner sanctum you can find the Yoni pedestal representing the Hindu goddess Shakti This area contains the best preserved structures and as we think the most beautiful ones too As You walk further towards temple group G You will notice how most of the structures have been damaged or completely destroyed leaving only the foundations By the 19th century the temple complex was largely forgotten and only rediscovered by the French during their colonial rule over Vietnam The French studied restored and reconstructed parts of the site This was until the Vietnam or American War in the late 1960s when the Americans carpet bombed most of the complex Reducing almost all temples which stood for centuries to dust and rubble Most of the damage was done in only one week of heavy bombing. The group A complex was hit especially hard It was the tallest and most impressive structure in Misun and also the most important temple for the Cham people Today almost nothing of its former glory remains even though complex A appears huge with a gorgeous mountainous backdrop here Quite fitting since the name Misun means beautiful mountain in Vietnamese What you see here has like all the other structures been restored with many initiatives like the Indian-Vietnamese cooperation here at group A Thanks to these efforts we are able to walk through these structures again and see what these temples might have looked like centuries ago To this day you find bomb holes all over the complex like the ones around group F These structures here are among the oldest but due to problems arising during excavation Restoration efforts had to be halted. This temple here for example remains supported with beams and a roof against sun and rain until a solution is found We truly enjoyed our time here and would have spent even more if it just hadn't been so hot and humid that day On the way out we still passed one of the buildings where many relics and decorative pieces are stored and categorized Also, some of the bombshells are stored here We also passed by the museum next to the parking lot which contains much more historical information on the temples relics and figures How the excavation and restoration process is going and maps of other important sites around Vietnam So we spent here a good one and a half hours right now in the pure Sun it's quite horrible to be honest Like the Sun is like really making it less enjoyable we have to say because we're big fans of ruins we're big fans of the Yeah, deep history of countries and just to know more about these places, but it is quite exhausting to say the least Also, it made us doubt if a little bit it was worth it to come in this heat We mean so yeah, 90% actually of the grounds were destroyed during the war by bombs Indeed, but we can see that through initiatives and corporations A lot of sites are being rebuilt at the moment or have been rebuilt partially this was with different kind of initiatives We see for example India playing a part in that which makes sense because there's a Hindu Yeah, you see like statues of Shiva for example, but of course missing like limbs or whatever You can even see a few yourself you bumps right in the black bomb holes, which have been marked also So it is very interesting But so yeah, if you're interested in these things like us we do recommend to come earlier We saw already people leaving the moment we arrived so they did an early morning probably at five o'clock Well, the thing is we we knew that it's gonna be bad because if you look at the weather forecast From 9 o'clock. It's almost 30 degrees. So it's like a 30 degrees and it just doesn't go down So it really doesn't matter if you come at 9 or at 12 or at 3 It's just horrible and as from Belgium and Germany, we're really not used to this kind of heat I'm generally speaking bad and warm weather like I can't handle the heat as well This trip was our last activity here in central Vietnam And we will see you next time when we will be exploring Ho Chi Minh City aka Saigon