My special feeling at My Son sanctuary Vietnam

Melting like an ice cream under the sun of Hoi An

Last Sunday, we took a small guided tour to visit the My Son sanctuary in the suburbs of Hoi An, Vietnam.

It was such a hot day, like any other day. We left early in the morning and arrived there around 9 a.m.

I thought the temperature would be cooler at that time, but no. It was so, so hot, and the sun, dear sun, was shining with all its strength. If I were covered by a solar panel, I would store enough energy to keep my headlamp on for an hour or so.

It is surprising that even after 3 weeks here, I am still not used to the extreme heat. In fact, the heat is so intense that no amount of water you drink helps. It feels like it turns into sweat right away. I even experienced moments where I felt like I was melting like ice cream.

Making it visible and how I felt it

I did not take many photos. I thought lots of high-quality photos already exist on the internet, so instead I focused on taking a few meaningful ones, including the moment where I felt something very special. Let me tell you about that in more detail.

I was walking between the ruins of My Son temple. This temple has been bombed multiple times during the Vietnam War, and now not much of it is left, but there remains enough to keep the vibe of a sanctuary made by people who believed in a force higher than themselves ruling the world. Well, they believed it very strongly indeed.

You know, I have been thinking and feeling about this recently, and I came to a raw conclusion: it is very natural for humans to need to see something in order to believe in it. So it makes perfect sense that they made their gods visible in the form of statues placed in a sanctuary, so each time they went there, they felt closer to the eternity they were imagining.

You are free to judge me (better not please hehe), but when I walked between those old walls, beautifully and meticulously crafted, designed, and decorated, I could feel it. There was something in the air. I mean, I could feel it entering my lungs with each breath and leaving a unique sensation as I exhaled.

Of course, this feeling didn’t last long. I wanted to stay in that state longer, but with all the tourists around, trying to get into the temples, posing, taking photos, and checking it off their to-do lists (I know I am judging sometimes, I am working on it), it was hard to concentrate.

As soon as I found a moment with fewer people around, I placed both my hands on the entrance walls of one of the ruins. And I felt it again. It felt like something was moving—through the walls into one hand, circulating through my chest, then flowing into the other hand and back into the wall. Like a loop.

I don’t know how to explain it in words. It is like tasting a fruit you have never had before (which happens often here in Vietnam hehe), and you simply cannot describe it to someone else. We don’t have the language for that. The taste isn’t similar to anything known, right?

So apologies ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I cannot fully describe this feeling. I can only say that it was powerful, and it came in short moments here and there.

Oh, actually, maybe I can describe part of it. It felt like I could connect with the people who used to pray there long ago. As if their emotions were somehow stored in the walls, stones, and bricks, and I could feel them through my fingertips…

I remember a TV series where a character had the ability to read the history of a place just by touching it. When I first saw that, I thought, “Heh, interesting,” but I had no idea, and no intention at all, to experience something like that myself.

Anyway, these things are so unseen and so personal that it is almost impossible to build a theory around them. You can only experience them. And I did…to my bones.

The magic continues

There were also some small touristy activities, but they didn’t interest me much. My highlight of the day was My Son sanctuary, and my concern for surviving the heat. I honestly had two near-fainting episodes over the past three weeks. It is not fun!

We arrived at the hotel in the afternoon and had lunch/dinner. I had a delicious custom-made banana-mango smoothie from a very cheerful Vietnamese lady whose restaurant is right beside our hotel, and Gab ordered a huge manly dish (you know what I mean hehe). We were both very hungry.

We got back to the hotel, took a cold shower, rested a bit, and then headed to the old town (this will be a separate blog coming soon).

We came back home at about 8 p.m., and this was the moment I had been waiting for since we left My Son sanctuary. I sat on the sofa, took my camera, transferred the photos to my laptop, and started editing them in Photoshop, to bring the dormant spirit back into the photos hehe, and also to see if I could reconnect with that feeling from the morning.

Now I was alone, without the tourists around me. I could concentrate, recreate the vibe, and imagine myself there, in the darkness, when the sanctuary is closed, with no one around and no light.

I imagined turning on my flashlight and walking through the forest to reach the sanctuary. I imagined the sound of crickets and the distant chirps of a bird. I imagined entering the sanctuary, lighting the path with a lantern so I could see the statues of the gods, some of them headless.

I imagined stepping up the half-broken, slippery stone stairs leading into the temple. I imagined myself entering, placing the light aside, and breathing that magic in the air, letting it fill my lungs, circulating through my body and settling within me for a while.

Goosebumps!

Have a great afternoon :)

May 5th, 2026

Hoi An, Vietnam