Thap Doi Cham Towers

Two brick towers stand side by side in the middle of Quy Nhơn, a busy city on the coast. They are not the tallest Cham towers in Vietnam, and not the oldest. What sets them apart is their place, only a few kilometers from the sea, among homes and crowded streets.

The official name is the Hưng Thạnh Tower. Tháp Đôi, or Twin Towers, is the popular name, and it comes from a simple fact: two towers remain, standing parallel. The site lies in Quy Nhơn, in Gia Lai province. This is the area that used to be Bình Định.

The towers were ranked a national monument of architecture and art in 1980. Research dates them to about the late 12th century and the 13th century. Champa was an ancient kingdom on the central and southern coast of what is now Vietnam. In those years its architecture in the old Bình Định area took on a good deal from Khmer art to the west.

The Khmer influence shows most clearly in the roof. Many Cham towers end in a slender, pointed top. Here the roofs rise in several tiers and curve slightly, which gives a heavy, solid look. For this reason the French once called the monument Tour Khmer, which means Khmer Tower. Research documents record this name.

Two decorations stand out on the roof. At the corners of the eaves, the divine bird Garuda spreads its wings. Around the eaves run figures of apsaras. An apsara is a celestial maiden, a being who lives in heaven. An apsara stands for beauty and grace. Garuda is the bird that serves the god Vishnu. Both come from Hindu belief. Seeing them on a Cham tower in Quy Nhơn shows how deeply the civilization of Champa mixed with the Hindu tradition from India and with Khmer influence from the west.

Each tower is built of brick, with a real door in the main face and false doors on the other sides. Sources differ a little on the height, giving roughly 18 to 20 meters, and the larger tower is a little taller than the smaller one.

Near the towers, two bridges cross the Hà Thanh River. In local poetry, popular tradition has joined the Twin Towers and the Twin Bridges as a picture of a couple. The verse is not the reason the towers were built. But it shows how much the people of Quy Nhơn love this place.

The towers stand in wide grounds in the middle of the city. As evening comes, the last sunlight lies long across red bricks more than 800 years old. The shadows of the two towers fall on the ground, and from far off comes the sound of waves. In this one afternoon a Cham tower, a city by the sea and the memory of centuries are gathered together, a combination not often found in Vietnam.