Chùa Hà

This guide to Chùa Hà in Hanoi follows Chi, a twenty-eight-year-old skeptic dragged here by friends who swore the pagoda's Mother Goddess altar had found them partners. You'll hear what people bring to that altar toward the back of the temple, past the front-hall prayers for money and career, and what a monk presses into a visitor's hand before they leave. The guide also traces the temple's murky origins, where rival legends about which king built it first have never been settled.