Cham charm crumbling away

The bumpy road to My Son temples leading out of Hoi An town reminds me of a trip four years ago when I had to turn back as the road was being upgraded. Today as we coast along the road the trip from Hoi An to My Son seems to be easy.

The road is wide, flat and seemingly built to last.

The rickety bamboo bridge leading into My Son is still there but it is no longer in use. A mock-wood concrete bridge has taken over, spanning across a stream that runs through the lush forest where My Son sanctuary is nestled.

When I cross the bridge, a tanned man snaps: “Bought a ticket?”

“Yes,” I reply.

“Get on,” he barks, jumping into an old US jeep on the sidewalk. The jeep trundles up the narrow track towards the religious centre. We jump out at a thatched bungalow and from there we make our way to the nearby temple.

But the old jeep in My Son evokes images of the American war in my mind. Once, fierce battles occurred in this area. The lush forest surrounding the temples was used as a hideout for North Vietnamese soldiers.

American B 52 bombers ravaged the remote valleys. In fact, between 1945 and 1975 it was quite simply a no-go zone.

The bombardment ended in 1969 after strong public protest. Tragically, the central temple, home to some of the most impressive Cham architecture had been destroyed by then. Bomb craters filled with mossy-water surround the temples.

But unexploded bombs and mines remained a threat in My Son valley even after the war. In 1977 a number of engineers were killed by mines while they attempted to clear the bushes and defuse explosives in the area.

Perhaps, visitors may be disappointed at what remains in My Son today as it is not grand as the Angkor Watt in Cambodia. But it is worth noting that the buildings here predate Angkor Watt by several centuries and represent the typical sculptures and cultural values of the Cham people.

The buildings of My Son were created for religious purposes. Records on a stone stele in My Son show the first wooden temples were built in the 4th century to worship the Siva Bhadresvara. However, the complex was destroyed by a big fire two centuries later.

As time passed, temples and towers in My Son grew up in groups in the small valley. Once My Son was a forest of towers and temples with 70 architectural works built in different stages between the 4th and 13th century in the central coast.

Only 25 structures remain today but the site was inscribed by UNESCO as a World Heritage for its exceptional example of cultural interchange, with the introduction of Hindu architecture from the Indian sub-continent into Southeast Asia and the vivid reflection of Cham culture.

Wandering in between ruins, I was filled with emotion. Looking at the once mighty Champa kings surrounded by soldiers and dancing girls that now are in a significant state of disrepair.

The first groups of temples I come across are perhaps the best ones. Some of them retain their original structure. At a closer look, I see statues of Gods, dancing girls and animals carved into brick walls.

Chipped sandstone pillars and shattered remnants lay everywhere. Time is also working against the temples. Some towers have collapsed while only the foundations remain of others. Two of the towers, the roof of which were destroyed and replaced by aluminum sheets, house a collection of Champa sculptures and other temple ornaments such as altars, bricks, Brahma and Dikpalak statutes, female deities and terracotta artifacts.

I spot a bombshell in a tower as I walk towards a small path, which winds through another group of dilapidated temples.

One collapsed tower is overgrown with grass. Another rundown tower nearby is held up with scaffolding and sheltered from rain and sun by an aluminum roof.

Looking closer, to my surprise, there is no mortar between the bricks of the temples. It is still a mystery how the ancient Champa people stuck bricks together. Some scientists argued clay was used while others thought a kind of vegetable resin helped.

Conservation and restoration work is underway in My Son but it is also proving to be a challenge. The construction techniques used to build the temples also remains a mystery. It is hard to replicate the bricks in My Son. I heard long time ago that an old man in the area was able to produce bricks that appeared to be quite similar but I was told that he had since died.

However, I am lucky enough to see a Cham dancing show. Two shows are performed every morning, except on Mondays, in an open thatched house. Young men and women move as you might imagine the gods carved on the temple walls in stone would.

The performers are not Cham people but locals who have been trained by Truong Ton, an old Cham man from Ninh Thuan province.

The old man also performs for the audience by blowing non-stop through a Cham bronze trumpet for around seven minutes. Its sound is so mighty you half expect a barrage of kings and soldiers from Champa kingdom to suddenly appear.

Personally, I believe the best time to see My Son is in the afternoon when the sun still shines over the crumbling towers and trees.

A young boy tells me a foreigner recently got lost for a few days in the thick forest after becoming captivated by the sunset over My Son. He’d climbed up the mountain to take photos and after darkness fell, he got lost on the way back.

Now, in an attempt to let visitors enjoy My Son’s mystery, the management board recently decided to open the site in the evenings.

So these days neon lights are turned on when the sun goes down and the temples can be seen in a way that the Cham kings never could have imagined.