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Friday, November 22 2024
Where do you travel?
Friday, November 22 2024
Taking a My Son tour from Da Nang, I visited My Son (Quang Nam province) in a drizzling-rain afternoon. The road to the Holy land was winding and covered with shades of trees. Alongside the road was undulating mountain ranges. The nearer I got to ancient towers area, the closer the sky was to me that the cloud seemed to fly just above the ground.
My tour guide, a local people was so knowledgeable about the history of My Son that he told us legends as well as myths which interested me so much. Accordingly, My Son Holy Land which had existed for 16 centuries was the pride of Cham people in particular and Vietnamese in general. It was a unique architectural work which expressed the flourishing development of Cham culture at the end of the fourth century and the early fifth century. I was told about a real story of the first architect who devoted himself to restoring Cham towers also. His name was Kazik. He, a Polish, spent the last 16 years of his life in My Son. Until his death, he still wanted to preserve and restore the palace of Cham Kings.
Standing among the ruins of Cham culture, I totally forgot about my real life in the city and was absorbed in thought of a strong period of Champa. Surrounding by small clusters of towers, the main tower in the middle was like a celebration of power and the unity of organization. The architecture there was strongly influenced by Indian style. Almost all towers were conical and built of red bricks without mortal. The tower roofs were designed by several overlapping stories. Doors were carved with statues in various shapes of women, animals, or plants. Main temples generally worshipped the god Siva who created the universe. Smaller shrines worshipped gods of Thunder, Lightening, Indra, the god of sun Surya and the god of war Skanda.
I was particularly impressed by reliefs, statues and stone steles there. Statues were mainly carved with a picture of woman deep in dancing. Those women were named Aspara. Stone steles were carved with ancient symbols and letters. All seemed to tell tourists about a brilliant era of Cham country, which regretfully was over.
Spending the whole day in My Son Sanctuary, I had the opportunity to contemplate the beauty of heritage in sunset, the best time in a day to enjoy the ruins. Ancient towers suddenly became more sparkling and magical in the afternoon sun. Aspara dancers looked like moving in their thousand-year dance. The wind whispering through mountain ranges was like drum beat of Champa dance. All were combined together to create a picture that stole my heart.
