Hue, part 2

The next day we took a boat ride to the An Quang Pagoda, a beautiful pagoda about 15km outside of town on the river shore.  This pagoda is famous because it was the home of Thich Quang Duc, the monk who burned himself to death in Saigon in 1963 to protest the harsh treatment of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese regime.  The act was photographed by Malcom Browne of the Associated Press, who later won a Pulitzer prize for the photograph.  The car he used to drive from Hue to Saigon is on exhibit at the pagoda.

David Halberstam of the New York Times, who witnessed the event, wrote, "I was to see that sight again, but once was enough. Flames were coming from a human being; his body was slowly withering and shriveling up, his head blackening and charring. In the air was the smell of burning human flesh; human beings burn surprisingly quickly. Behind me I could hear the sobbing of the Vietnamese who were now gathering. I was too shocked to cry, too confused to take notes or ask questions, too bewildered to even think... As he burned he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound, his outward composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people around him."