Tours › My Son Sanctuary
My Son Sanctuary
Thousand-year-old Cham brick towers in a jungle valley, reached early while it is still cool and quiet.
Why I like this one
My Son is a valley of red brick Hindu temples built by the Cham kingdom between the fourth and thirteenth centuries, abandoned, swallowed by jungle, and only rediscovered by a French scholar in 1898.
Seventy-one structures once stood across the valley. Bombing in 1969 took the finest group with it. What survives is still remarkable — and the brickwork is a genuine mystery, fired and bonded without any visible mortar in a way nobody has convincingly reproduced.
We go early. It is a different place at nine in the morning than at eleven.
Highlights
- Cham towers standing a thousand years later with no mortar between the bricks
- Groups B, C and D — the best preserved, and the site museum
- Apsara dance and Cham music at the performance house
- A green valley ringed by mountains, with almost nobody in it at 09:00
The plan, hour by hour
This is how the day usually runs. Nothing is fixed — if you want longer somewhere, or you'd rather skip a stop entirely, just say so on the day.
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07:30
Hotel pick-up
About an hour and ten minutes inland from Da Nang, forty-five minutes from Hoi An, through rice fields the whole way.
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08:45
Arrive and ride in
Entry is 150,000₫ for foreign visitors, and it covers the electric buggy that takes you the last kilometre, the museum and the dance performance. Open from 06:00, so we are comfortably ahead of the crowds.
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09:00
Temple groups B, C and D
The best preserved of what remains. Sandstone gods over brick doorways, a lingam and yoni still in place, and carvings of dancers on the walls. UNESCO listed the valley in 1999.
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09:45
Cham dance
Twenty minutes of Apsara dance and Cham music at the performance house near the B-C-D groups. Included in your ticket and better than it sounds.
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10:15
The museum and the crater walk
Sculpture recovered from the valley, then a slow walk back past the bomb craters left in 1969. It is part of the story rather than a detour from it.
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11:30
Drive back
Towards Da Nang or Hoi An, whichever suits your afternoon.
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12:45
Drop-off
Or I leave you in Hoi An for lunch and the rest of the day, which is what I would do.
What's included
Included
- Private air-conditioned car and driver for the whole day
- Licensed English-speaking guide — me
- Hotel pick-up and drop-off anywhere in Da Nang or Hoi An
- Cold water and cool towels in the car
- All my time, all the photos, and honest local advice
Not included
- My Son entrance ticket, 150,000₫
- Meals and drinks
- Tips (never expected)
Good to know
- MeetingYour hotel in Da Nang or Hoi An
- TimingFirst thing. The site opens at 06:00 and by eleven it is busy and the heat sits in the valley.
- LengthHalf day
- GroupPrivate — your group only
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My Son Sanctuary
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