Nah Trang - Long Son Pagoda

Our next stop down the coast was in Nha Trang, a great beach town with hopping nightlife and a laid-back ambience. These are the steps up to the Long Son Pagoda, built in 1964 to protest South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem's repression of Buddhism.


The pagoda hosts the largest Buddha figure in Asia; the bronze busts around the base are of eight monks who immolated themselves in 1963, each framed in a halo of flames.

One of the beautiful interior columns...


...which rests on the back of a tortoise