Today we went to My Son, a series of temples from the 4th century onwards about an hour from Hoi An.

My Son was an impressive place steeped in so much history.

Archeologists still do not know how the temples were built without cement to hold them together and can not replicate the bricks perfectly either.

When you look at some of the internal walls built over 1,000 years ago they are clean and red, yet next to them, a repaired wall built 80 years ago is covered in moss and has turned black. - the ancient people's brick making skills have been lost throughout the centuries and not even the most talented scientists of today can uncover their building secrets .

Interestingly some of the outside carvings on the temples have the heads of the priests replaced as the French removed the heads and now show them in the Lourve Museum. -

When you see this close up you are torn between the tragedy and immorality of a country stealing the heritage of another, yet of course when you visit such museums, never having had the opportunity to travel to these places and see the relics etc in person, you are grateful that they are somewhere central where you can wonder at them.

I found it a conflicting experience for this very reason.

It rained as we walked around My Son (there has been maybe two days without rain so far here) and our feet got muddy as we did our best to avoid the huge puddles that grew with each passing minute.

Having left My Son we travelled by bus to where our boat was waiting to take us the rest of the way back.

Upon pulling over we then walked down a narrow muddy path between trees and the river to our boat where we were taken to a small island village where locals carve trees into the most wonderful pieces of furniture, statues and collectibles by hand and where they also make intricate carvings into wood (using a router) inlays with mother of pearl.

You can watch them hand saw each piece of mother of pearl and then individually place and glue then into the wood. - it is a dusty and time consuming process, though efforts are rewarded with beautiful and delicate pieces.

Once we returned to Hoi An by boat we made our way back to the hotel by asking locals the way (the tour guide just said welcome back when we moored in a strange location!) where we relaxed for a bit and then went out for a walk and shopped.

The evening meal we had was passable (I couldn't eat mine though the restaurant was very kind and replaced my meal despite my saying it was my fault I didn't eat it) and we went back to the hotel for an early night and some American TV (you clearly can't take all the Western out of a Westerner!).