Giac Lam Buddhist Temple

This guide to Giac Lam Buddhist Temple in Ho Chi Minh City follows a pagoda founded in 1744, and the monk Vien Quang who later renamed and expanded it into a leading center of Buddhist practice. You'll hear about the bodhi sapling a monk named Narada carried here in 1953, said to descend from the tree under which the Buddha found enlightenment, and about the seven-tier tower whose construction stalled for two decades after 1975. Listen for the gilded wooden statues watching from the gloom inside.