Buu Long Pagoda surprises visitors who arrive expecting the usual forms of Vietnamese Buddhism. Set on a wooded hill on the eastern outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City, above the Dong Nai river, the monastery is built in a Theravada idiom that owes much to the temple architecture of Thailand and Myanmar: a slender gilded stupa with a tiered spire, white galleries and gates, sharply pointed finials, all reflected in a pond whose water holds a distinctive jade-green colour. Vietnamese decorative motifs are woven through the whole, so that the result reads as a genuine hybrid rather than an import. The atmosphere is contemplative and the setting deliberately green, with the trees closing off the city that surrounds it. The film covers the complex in 4K, from aerial views that reveal its geometry against the forest to close work on the gilding, the guardian figures and the meditative practice of the community. It is a strong visual subject for strands on Asian sacred architecture, Buddhism and contemplative travel.
