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"I" Corps
We were off at 7 in the morning for the Cham Museum. It contains some of the priceless objects brought here from the Cham sites in Central VietNam. I doubt that they had other visitors that day, but it really was worthwhile. Next, we headed for the Marble Mountains, which are, indeed, marble. One of them, Thuy Son, is honey combed with caves in which there are Cham, Buddhist, and Confucian relics, pagodas, and temples. The summit is reached through a warren of narrow chimney caves which ascend steeply. It offers a panoramic view of what was DaNang Airbase and, closer yet, China Beach, the site of an in-country R&R center and the 510th Evacuation Hospital known as the 5 and dime of the TV series, China Beach.
The interesting thing is that this mountain was occupied by the VC throughout the war. They had their own hospital in these caves. There is a carving on the wall commemorating the destruction of 19 American planes on the ground below by a VC woman's unit. I am constantly stunned by new information about how close the enemy was most of the time. The mountain and its monastery walls and monuments are marked by many bullets. There are actually 5 summits which make up the Marble Mountains They are named for the 5 elements, Earth, Water, Metal, Fire, and Wood. This was a fascinating and terrifying place. Climbing it took a lot out of me in my dehydrated state, but it was worth it.
We then headed west along a river toward Rt. 1. I saw some interesting and beautiful scenes of the river with giant fish nets small boats, and water buffalo being worked in rice paddies. It is impossible for me to photograph the beauty of this place, or comprehend the back-breaking labor it takes to survive it. Turning south on Rt. 1 and west on a road that truly doesn't exist, it took hours of bouncing and bottoming along at a crawl to reach one of the treasures of VietNam. My Son was the Cham Kingdom's intellectual and religious city, and is considered on the level of Ankgor in Cambodia, Bagan in Myanmar,and Ayutthaya in Thailand. John has visited all four.
The towers are set in the end of a valley with Hon Quap (Cat's Tooth Mountain) standing tall behind it. This was a religious center under King Bhadravarman in the 4th Century. The towers there date from the 9th through the 13th Centuries. Arriving at the end of a very long and rough road, we found our tickets to cost 100,000 Dong. It was the best 100,000 I ever spent. We walked across a bamboo bridge and were carried in a jeep further into the foothills.
Ancient MySon Cham Center near Lao Border
Reaching a creek, we dismounted and continued on foot, and there stood the city. It was awesome. This was NVA country throughout the war, and, sadly, they took refuge here in the belief that we wouldn't bomb it. More damage was done by the bombing in the war than had been done in the previous 1000
years. Some tower complexes are now rubble, tombs scattered, and tablets of ancient Hindu script pock marked by bullets. Deep craters straddle some structures which still stand. Vines climb on the ruins and new growth jungle is beginning to rise from the destruction of war. We were warned to stay on the paths because of unexploded ordinance.
Sadly, as we left, our guide threw water bottles and the packaging from his lunch into the stream.
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