Two years after pre-Angkorian and Dvaravati arts tour with ICOMOS international experts in Cambodia and Thailand, I had received an invitation to join the second episode of this academic gathering but this time focusing on pre-Angkorian and Cham arts in Vietnam which I immediately decided to participate even though I already visited most of the Champa Sites but visiting Oc Eo of Funan was really tempting. The group of scholars and enthusiasts firstly met at Saigon and visited Ho Chi Minh City Museum of History to study many statues of Funan and Champa. Most of the statues are Vishnu and Buddha, interesting but the quality of Funan art displaying in Phnom Penh National Museum I saw two years ago are much better. Then we made a journey to Mekong delta region southwest of Ho Chi Minh City to the city of Long Xuyen with a brief stop to see Funan ruins in a small village of Go Thap.

On the next day we continued our travel to Oc Eo which is a medium size village not far from Long Xuyen. The whole landscape of this area is flatland of rice fields and orchards with sophisticated irrigation system of countless canals that prevent Mekong flooding. When we saw a group of lonely mountains, Ba The Mountain, in the middle of the sea of paddy field, we immediately knew that we finally arrived Oc Eo. We first went to the new Oc Eo Cultural Research Center and welcomed by …