The title of this post is the name of a site of ancient ruins in Vietnam. I have not become a father on this trip. That would require a certain amount of, um, participation on my part.
My Son is the site of Hindu temples built by the Champa empire, which flourished in Vietnam and Cambodia in the 7th to 15th centuries. They vied for control of the region with the Siamese and Khmer kingdoms. In the early 1600s the Champa king converted to Islam, and thus most modern-day Chams are Muslims.
They didn't build monuments on the scale of those found in Thailand and Cambodia. The Thais and Khmers built using cut blocks of sandstone and lateriate. The Champa ruins are of interest partly because they were built with brick.
The site is about an hour outside of Hoi An and is still mostly unexcavated. The site is poorly organized so that lots of walking and shuttling about in beatup minivans is necessary. Once at the ruins themselves they can be visited in less than an hour.
The temples were built in the hilly jungle, at the foot of Cat's Tooth Mountain. I visited in mid-March. The heat was suffocating, the humidity so thick you could literally see the air. I can't imagine what it's like there in the summer. Or what it was like having to bake the bricks, hack away at the jungle and build the temples in the tropical heat.
I love the dash of color added by the Buddhist monk's robes. Again, these are Hindu temples. He was there as part of my tour group!
Excavations are underway, but I think there's a certain charm to seeing the ruins in situ and reclaimed by the jungle.
The ancient Cham language, as seen on this engraving, was derived from Sanskrit, but looks similar to modern Thai, Lao and Khmer.
If my guide was correct (and this is a big if!) it's a dead language, and even modern-day Chams can't read it.
And what would a Southeast Asian historical site be without a few craters from US bombs?
The US bombed the site in 1969, destroying the two largest temples and damaging 16 others.
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