One Pillar Pagoda

A single-room wooden shrine on one stone column in a pond, meant to look like a lotus opening out of the water. Founded in 1049 by the emperor Lý Thái Tông after a dream, destroyed by the departing French in 1954, and rebuilt immediately afterwards.

It is one of the two or three images that stand for Vietnam, and it is about the size of a garden shed. Both of those things are true at once.

What it costs

⭐ Free. It sits inside the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum complex grounds and there is nothing to buy.

When to go

Whenever you are already at the mausoleum, which is mornings. The grounds are quieter once the mausoleum queue has gone.

Getting there

A two-minute walk from the mausoleum, on the Ba Dinh side. Almost nobody comes here as a separate trip and there is no reason to.

If you only have an hour

Five minutes is genuinely enough. Combine it with the mausoleum and the museum beside it; on its own it is a photograph.

What people get wrong

⚠️ People are disappointed by the scale. Every picture of it is taken from low down and close in, which makes it look like a building. Go knowing it is small and it is charming rather than a let-down.