Place of worship
One Pillar Pagoda
P. Chùa Một Cột, Ba Đình, Hà Nội 100000
Wooden shrine shaped like a lotus, balanced on a single stone pillar rising from a pond.
This guide to the One Pillar Pagoda in Hanoi opens with Emperor Ly Thai Tong's recurring dream of the goddess Quan Am offering him a son, and the monk Thien Tue's advice to marry a peasant girl and build a pillar shaped like the vision. It follows the pagoda built in 1049 to fulfill that dream, and its dynamiting by French forces as they withdrew from Hanoi in 1954. Look at the single stone column now holding up the whole roofed shrine.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.