This is where Vietnamese late PM Phan Van Khai comes to rest

A worker puts up flowery decorations around what will be the tomb of Vietnamese late Prime Minister Phan Van Khai. He died at home in Cu Chi District, Ho Chi Minh City, aged 85 early on Saturday. His coffin had stayed at the Independence Palace in the city center the past two days for a state funeral and will be buried back at home on Thursday.

Khai will rest next to his wife’s grass-covered tomb in the family’s cemetery. She died in 2012 and her favorite flower was orchids, which can be seen all over the tomb yard.

Their tombs lie in a green garden.

Khai served as prime minister from 1997 to 2006, and has been remembered as a reformist leader. His neighbors yet have their own memories of him, and one of those is this Tan Thong communal temple that he helped restore. The 248-year-old building stands 200 meters from his house.

Nguyen Van Hung, who has been taking care of the temple for 43 years, said that after restoring the place in 2010, Khai had gifted it  distiches saying: You leave at young age for the country, you come back at old age to devote to your beloved village.

A photo at the temple shows Khai (L, 3rd), then a government leader, visits the temple in 2000. “He was a very simple and loving person. He never showed off,” Hung said. “He was more than wonderful.”

Khai brings former Party secretary Le Kha Phieu to visit the temple after it was restored.

“This is where Khai sat every day,” Hung said, pointing to a chair at the temple. “He came here every morning, sharing smokes and coffee with old people and taking about everything. He was humorous and never said any bad things about anyone.”

The temple is home to many Dipterocarpus alatus trees that Khai brought from the nearby Tay Ninh Province many years ago. The sign says the garden was planted by Khai in 1997.