The Ba Đình area is indeed quite interesting - within a small area, there is a lot packed in as we realised after visiting the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and the Văn Phòng Chủ Tịch Nước. And after the presidential palace, we headed towards the Chùa Một Cột or the One Pillar Pagoda...
Passing by the Ho Chi Minh Museum...
The hammer, the sickle and the star... symbols of communism!
The Chùa Một Cộtwas built by Emperor Lý Thái Tông, in the 11th century. And legends say that the emperor was childless and dreamt that he met the Avalokiteshvara, who handed him a baby son while seated on a lotus flower.
After that the emperor married a peasant girl that he had met and they had a son. The emperor constructed the temple in gratitude for this in 1049, as advised by a monk named Thiền Tuệ - by erecting a pillar in the middle of a lotus pond, similar to the one he saw in the dream.
Mickey Mouse balloons here - that's quite amusing...
The temple is built of wood on a single stone pillar 1.25 metres in diameter, and it is designed to resemble a lotus blossom, which is a Buddhist symbol of purity, since a lotus blossoms in a muddy pond...
In 1954, the French forces destroyed the pagoda before withdrawing from Vietnam after the First Indochina War, It was rebuilt afterwards. Shouldn't that be called barbarism?
Buddhist flags along the perimeter...
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