Things to Do at Thien Mu Pagoda

Thien Mu Pagoda sits on a low bluff above the Perfume River about four kilometres west of Hue's citadel, and the approach by boat is the way most people first encounter it. The seven-storey Phuoc Duyen tower rises through the riverside mist, octagonal and slightly lopsided-looking in the most charming way. The whole scene smells faintly of incense carried downstream on the morning air. It's been here in some form since 1601, when the Nguyen lords raised the first structure on what local legend described as an auspicious hill. An old woman in red and green appeared to prophecy a great lord would come to build a pagoda for the country's prosperity. The tower that stands now dates to 1844, and it has a solidity to it. The old, slightly moss-darkened brick, the sound of a bell somewhere deeper in the complex, the cool shade inside the gatehouse after the Hue heat, all make it feel rooted rather than merely restored. Thien Mu Pagoda carries a weight of modern history too, not just the imperial kind. It was a centre of Buddhist resistance to the South Vietnamese government in the 1960s. The blue Austin car parked in a glass pavilion on the grounds is the vehicle that carried monk Thich Quang Duc to Saigon for his act of self-immolation in 1963. A photograph of which became one of the most circulated images of the twentieth century. The car's presence here, mundane and powder-blue, creates a strange quiet around it. Visitors tend to slow down near it without quite knowing why. The pagoda complex is still an active monastery, which shapes the experience meaningfully. You'll hear monks chanting during morning and afternoon prayer sessions. The deep resonance of wooden percussion instruments mixes with the smell of sandalwood smoke drifting through the courtyards. The grounds extend back from the river through a sequence of gardens and shrine halls. On weekday mornings you might find you have long stretches of it essentially to yourself. A different proposition from the weekend crowds that arrive from Hue's tourist hotels.

Take the Perfume River. Dragon boats leave from Trang Tien Bridge and glide thirty to forty minutes each way. City turns to countryside. Smell woodsmoke. Pedal the south bank instead. Twenty to thirty minutes on a bike. Quiet streets. Frangipani drifts. Motorbike taxis slash it to fifteen. The pagoda waits at the end of Ha Khe street in Huong Long district. Signs point the way from the riverside road.