The Vietnamese pagoda ranks third on the list. The website touted that Tran Quoc Pagoda has an incredibly beautiful view. 

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Tran Quoc Pagoda when night falls. Photo: Kent Beat

The website posts, “Located on a small peninsula East of West Lake, Tran Quoc Pagoda is the oldest pagoda in Hanoi. It is over 1,500 years old and was recently voted the most beautiful pagoda in the world. The pagoda’s lakeside is particularly enchanting, and visitors are given incense to burn at the various shrines within the compound. Keep an eye out for the Bodhi tree! It grew from a cutting taken from the original tree in Boh Gaya in India, under which the Buddha sat and achieved enlightenment.”

This is not the first time that a foreign website has honored Tran Quoc Pagoda. In 2016, the Daily Mail of the UK also listed Tran Quoc among one of the 16 most beautiful pagodas in the world.

Seen as  a green island in the blue water of West Lake, Tran Quoc Pagoda is  the most sacred pagodas not only for its landscape, but also for the fact that it has stood there witnessing various upheavals along the course of the national history, the history of Hanoi, and the history of Buddhism.

Translated by Chung Anh