Luang Prabang to Angkor – Day 5: Vientiane

We began our first and only full day in Vientiane with a bus ride to the famous Buddha Park. We had considered hiring a tuk-tuk, but taking a bus – at 36,000 kip per person for a round trip – was a cheaper alternative that allowed us to observe a little bit of local life. Finding the Talat Sao bus station was not difficult, and we knew from the internet that we were to take bus number 14. We also made sure to cross-check this piece of intelligence with nearby information boards, which to our surprise were translated to English. And, as though these two sources were not enough, several local busybodies came up to us and confirmed we were waiting in the right place.

Our trip to the Buddha Park took a little under an hour. Most of our fellow passengers got off just a few minutes before our own destination, as the 14 bus makes a stop by the bridge to Thailand. On our way back, however, we hopped on a different bus. We waved down a green vehicle as it approached our stop only to realise it was not the number 14. However, when I asked the driver whether he was going to Vientiane (which I did by leaning into the opened door and saying “Vientiane? Vientiane?”), he said that he was.

Unlike our previous vehicle, this car was more of a shuttle than a bus, and it was so packed that Barron and I had to stand right between the entrance and assorted luggage. In the front, gazing placidly from their seats of honour, sat two Buddhist monks, while the back seats were filled with elderly women. A few times, the shuttle stopped, and a woman would hop off with a few bags and return to the shuttle empty-handed. These scenes made little sense to us, but I figured a fish in a plastic bag and a few watermelons could always find a use somewhere. In the meantime, the monks were transporting sacks of marigolds to their temple, and another woman was carrying a giant prayer drum to the Thai border.

Anyway, we enjoyed our visit to the bizarre Buddha Park. Its statues of divinities with multiple faces and animal features certainly seemed like they came out of a fever dream, which I appreciated after seeing so many conventionally styled statues at ordinary temples. I read that a priestly shaman founded the Buddha Park (also called Xieng Khuan – “Spirit City”) in 1958 but fled to Thailand after the communist takeover. He established another similar city right across the river, parts of which can allegedly be seen from Vientiane.

Once we were back to Vientiane proper, we walked from the bus station to Wat Sisaket, a colourful temple built in 1818 King Anouvong, who led Laos’ rebellion against Siam. Ironically, the Siamese army used the compound as its headquarters during its invasion of Vientiane in 1827. From Wat Sisaket, we continued to Wat Si Muang, a temple that dates all the way back to the sixteenth century, when pregnant women were allegedly sacrificed to propitiate its construction. Nowadays, Wat Si Muang is better known for its arcades, which are lined by statues of sitting Buddhas. The walls behind these buddhas are filled with niches that contain small Buddha statues, many of them in pairs. The temple also houses several old stelae, including one with a traditional Laotian horoscope.

By the time we finished viewing Wat Si Muang, it was one o’clock, and the ticket ladies at Ho Phrakeo returned from the hour-long lunchbreak. This temple was built in the sixteenth century by King Setthathirath after he moved Lan Xang’s capital from Luang Prabang to Vientiane. In his early years, Setthathirath was the ruler of Lanna, where he acquired the famous Emerald Buddha. He took the statue to Vientiane and built Ho Phrakeo to house it, using the new temple as his personal place of worship. In 1779, however, Siam sacked Vientiane and took the Emerald Buddha to its capital at Thonburi. Since then, the temple was rebuilt twice: first in 1816, then during the Second World War to repair the damage done during Siam’s invasion of 1827. Ho Phrakeo now serves as a museum and houses multiple interesting objects like the 9^th century Ban Tha Lat Inscription in the Mon language, which confirms the presence of Dvaravati culture in Vientiane.

Walking across the road from the Presidential Palace, we made our way to That Dam Stupa, which I cannot help calling “That Damn Stupa” in a Southern accent every time I read the name. The structure was one of the few monuments that survived Thailand’s sacking of Vientiane in 1827, and a folk legend says it is inhabited by a naga with seven heads. We ate a very good lunch at the nearby Makphet restaurant, which makes a few very solid vegetarian dishes in addition to its meat specialties.

Following lunch, we walked to the Patuxai Monument, which was completed in 1968 and pays homage to the martyrs of Laos’ struggle for independence. Its name literally translates to “Victory Gate,” with the word “xai” deriving from the Sanskrit word for victory, “jaya.” For a few minutes, we deliberated whether to climb up the gate, but we eventually decided against it as we did not want to spend any time in the stuffy staircase. We also searched up pictures of the view on Google images and judged them to be unimpressive.

Across the road from the monument, we haggled for a tuk-tuk, reasoning that a walk to our next destination would have taken us half an hour. We usually manage to reduce the price from 150 thousand to 100 thousand (or in this case, 90 thousand), but the readiness with which drivers accept this deal has convinced us that we are still getting ripped off. In any case, we are too comfortable and non-confrontational to bargain too hard and prefer to think that we are pumping a bit of extra money into a developing economy.

We arrived by Pha That Luang sometime before four o’clock as the shifting clouds were performing shadow plays on the stupa’s golden walls. Holding off Barron’s burning desire to pee, we managed to wait long enough to see the stupa light up completely under the slowly setting sun, after which we were content to enter the complex and walk around. We found the ticketed area unremarkable and, more importantly, lacking in bathrooms, so we soon left and crossed the road to the neighbouring Wat That Luang Tai. We arrived just in time for the doors to the main temple to be opened, which allowed us to witness the spectacle of the shrine’s neon lights flashing to popular music.

Pha That Luang is believed to trace its roots to the third century BCE, when a sacred relic was allegedly sent to Vientiane by none other than Emperor Ashoka, a great patron of Buddhism and the first Buddhist ruler of a major state. The structure was rebuilt multiple times during its life, most notably in the sixteenth century by King Setthathirat. Some old photos of the stupa show it without its walls painted gold, which means it acquired this feature at some point in the twentieth century.

We followed our visit to the stupa and temple with a quick excursion to Nong Sa Phang Lenh Park, which contains a naga fountain and a white monument referred to in English-language materials as the Revolution Memorial Tower. Catching another tuk-tuk, we then rode all the way back to the centre to explore Chao Anouvong Park. The park, of course, is dedicated to King Anouvong, who led Laos’ rebellion against Siam in 1826. Following its failure, Vientiane was completely destroyed, and tens of thousands of Lao people were forcibly deported to Isan, where they would be subjected to a strict policy of Thaification (it was the French who re-established the deserted city of Vientiane to win favour and reinforce their claims over areas populated by the Lao). King Anouvong himself was brought to Bangkok, gruesomely tortured and left to die in a cage. Still, in a gesture of reconciliation, his statue faces Thailand with its sword sheathed and its right hand extended in a handshake.

We watched the sun set over Thailand from our hotel’s rooftop bar and went into the city to exchange some money and eat dinner. We did not find much food at the nearby night market, which mostly sold clothes and plastic goods, but we eventually happened upon a French restaurant where I relived my Geneva days with a small slab of cheese. We also walked past what seemed to be a little Chinatown and saw a troupe training for a dragon dance.