Thien Mu Pagoda and Dinner at Y Thao Garden

This pagoda is an important center for Buddhism in Vietnam and lies just outside of central Hue on the western (?) side. A monk from this pagoda drove a car to a major intersection in Ho Chi Minh City and set himself on fire to protest the injustice of the Diem regime in 1963. He famously burned himself to death. The car that he drove into Saigon on that day is preserved at the pagoda, and a large reproduction of that famous photo hangs behind the car. Afterward, we took a boat whose keel was in the shape of a long dragon down the Perfume River back into Hue. This river is called the Perfume River because there used to be some sweet-smelling flowers that grew along the banks of the river. Thanks to pollution, these flowers are nowhere to be found now, although I did see some people swimming in the river, so hopefully it's somewhat clean. The boat went underneath the Trang Tien Bridge, which is nicely lit up in different colors at night, as was the Citadel.

For dinner, I had a xe om (motorcycle driver) drive me into the Old City for a dinner at a Vietnamese-style house with a beautiful outdoor garden that had been converted into a restaurant. At one point during dinner, I saw a tiny frog leap across the tiled floor; at another point, I saw a lizard on the other side of the window pane near the table where I was sitting. On to the dinner itself, the presentation of the meals and the overall taste of the food were excellent. The highlights were: the spring rolls that were planted in a carved-out and illuminated pineapple to look like feathers in a peacock; the steamed, mixed rice that came wrapped in the leaf of a lotus flower, and the bean cakes coated in some kind of caramelized, colored syrup so the cakes were made to look like small pieces of fruit. The only problem was that the set menu had too much food; even I couldn't finish it all.