Po Nagar - Ruins from the Cham Kingdom

Those ancient Khmer sure did get around! With ruins in Cambodia and even as far away as Kanchanaburi in Thailand, the Khmer Empire was one of the largest in the world. It's influence extended even to the Cham Kingdom of southern Vietnam. In Nha Trang, we visited Po Nagar, a small but fascinating Cham ruin.

The ruin is in the northern part of the city, near the coast. It's walkable from the central area where we were staying, but it was a hot day and we took a taxi. We arrived at Po Nagar at late morning, and it was already sweltering. The ruin was swarming with tourists, who we tried to push past to see the important stuff.

Po Nagar as a holy site dates back to the 2nd century. A small wooden temple stood on the hill in one form or another for the next few hundred years, until it was razed by invading Javanese in the 8th century. After that, Po Nagar was rebuilt in its current form.

Like other Khmer-style temples, Po Nagar is both Hindu and Buddhist. It was built late enough that Buddhist culture had already come to this part of Asia, and the Khmer Empire was already in its decline, but there are shrines to Shiva and Ganesh alongside those dedicated to Buddha.

The temple is called Po Nagar, named for the patron goddess of a local Cham clan that lived in the area. We had visited a Champa historical museum in Da Nang a few weeks before, and I'm glad we had, because unfortunately there wasn't much information provided at Po Nagar. There was a tiny one-room museum at the rear of the historical site, but it didn't explain so much.

We were just in time to watch some sort of cultural performance. Although Champa was absorbed into Vietnam in the 19th century, the culture is still very much alive. The Cham people are still here in southern Vietnam, and many of the country's ethnic minorities still work hard to preserve their unique culture.