Well it's Friday and our 1st full day in Vientiane. Simon, Elizabeth, Jun and I are off to see "Buddha Park". The Park was built in the late 1950's as sort of a religious park that combined both Hinduism and Buddhism. The statutes are made out of concrete...so off we go in a tuk-tuk truck for a round trip cost of 50,000K or $6.
We were all surprised in what we saw. Look at the pictures...we believe that each set of statutes represent a story...unfortunately there were no local guides to hire you we made up our own fables....we stayed for about an hour plus examining the statues and amazed that somebodies could create suck a "Park".
Departing the Park we stop at the "BeerLao" brewery where we treated to a very cold bottle of beer and watched a video about the brewery. The beer is excellent an it has been my beer of choice while in Lao.
From the brewery we head for Wat Si Saket that was one of the few that was not destroyed by the Thai's when they invaded Lao in the 1800s. The name of the temple is "Pha That Laung" which was spared because it's design is Thai based. What an impressive architecture. Similar to Thai Wats but have cobras and nagas (dragons) incorporated in its design. A huge gold super stupa, beautiful temple ornaments and a hall full of pictures depicting the life of Buddha...100s of detailed pictures of Buddha's life...enjoy
After lunch, I found the "Big Brother Mouse" store which is a charitable organization designed to foster reading among the Laotian children. They also carry Laotian children story books in both Lao and English...bought a few for the grandchildren. Picture of one of the book's illustrator and me.
We will be leaving Vientiane tomorrow AM for the Viet Nam border. We will spend our last night in Lao at a small village at a village on the border. We can only bring a small bag since we must cross a river to reach the village which is located in a jungle are...will take mosquito net and repellent. From there we enter Viet Nam...until we meet again...Tom
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