Buddha Park (Xiang Khouan) Vientiane

We're in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. We had high expectations about the city after reading loads about it, but we've been a bit disappointed. First, I was sick for 2 days so it didn't make it very enjoyable. We arrived on Saturday and had a look around, went to the National History Museum. I started to feel really hot and sick there so we kind …

Vientiane

Vientiane is the capital of Laos and is located on the Mekong bordering Thailand. Its still very small but after several days of walking around it looks like a lot of money is flowing into the city for development – mostly from Chinese companies. Unfortunately things to do in the city were limited to general sight seeing.< …

Being a "tourist" in Thailand means that I am only allowed to stay in the country for 90 days at a time with a tourist visa. If my agency was cooler and submitted my paperwork for a work permit, I would be able to stay longer without leaving, but alas, this is Thailand, and things like this don't really happen. but in reality it worked out better …

Well decided to get out of town today, Ive come to the conclusion that I have had enough of Wats for now, well at least until Cambodia and Angkor Wat.

I had read about this park that one man had created some 25KM outside the town which was a collection of Buddha's called Xiang Khouan so thought I would hop on a local bus and see it.
< …

In der Hauptstadt Vientiane haben wir einige schoene Tage verbracht. Wie fast jede Stadt in Asien, hat auch Vientiane viele Tempel zu bieten.

Ein besonderes Highlight ist der Buddha Park (Xiang Khouan). Auch hier waren wir fast alleine, weil sich nicht sehr viele Touristen dorthin verirren. Der Park ist aber wirklich spektakulaer und …

The journey to Laos was an unexpectedly comfortable one. I booked myself a second class sleeper, which meant I got an ACTUAL bed! Sadly, it was not long enough for me to fit comfortably into it, but was more than adequate for the average Thai man to stretch out in.
We arrived at the Thai-Lao border and from there I was completely clueless. I …

Vientiane

From Luang Prabang we took a bumpy 10-hour bus ride to Lao's capital city: Vientiane. The bus ride went by surprisingly fast for 10 hours, probably because this time I didn’t feel like I was going to be sick the whole way. Arriving in Vientiane, we immediately noticed that this capital city was unlike any we’d been to …

Free breakfast, the friend egg on toast was a good start to the day. April, Helen and Zoe had booked a ticket to go to The Kaeck but I was unsure if I wanted to go with them, might need another day in Vientiane just to figure out what I want to do next...

April struck a good deal with a tuk-tuk driver. For him to take us to see the Wat Si …

Day 109 - cont...

Had to wait around at the bus station as usual. The bus got to Vientiane at about 6:30. We hunted for room for about 30 mins. Everywhere was full.

We finally found a triple room on the top floor of a hotel. The room was full on mozzies. Not pleasant.

We decided to spoil ourselves and went for food …

Although hungover, we were glad to get up and pack to leave the weird craziness that is Vang Vieng. Having had enough of the baguettes and pancakes obtainable from every street vendor on every street, we tucked into some muesli and fruit in a place showing Friends...or Family Guy, it's hard to remember which show we watched and when!

…

... wasn't a can of water but the petrol can. One way to stop your passengers from smoking I guess. We arrived at the Buddha Park, shaken and highly flammable and spent an hour looking at the most random, weird collection of statues imaginable. There ...

... , it's not like the death road of Vietnam or Cambodia, its a bit more chilled. Anyway we then went on an adventure to find the Buddha Park (unfortunately, not a theme park, but a park full of buddhas). It was pretty cool and we only got lost a couple of ...

... , but i've been hundreds of thousands of buddhas - how different can they all be from eachother - ok, i am ignorant! Secondly was Buddha Park which was great and a place where i obtained many many photos and took about an hour to get to on a local ...

... sure Vietnam will provide more of the same.   I guess that's all I have to say about Vientiane.  We took a day trip out to the Buddha Park, which I'll post separately.  My final observations on Laos:   It was more expensive than ...

... long dirt road to her home.  It was a quiet ride for the remaining few kilometers to our destination.   The Buddha Park was built in 1958 by a priest-shaman who fused Buddhist and Hindu traditions.  The sculptures reflect this ...

... missionaries from India placed a piece of Buddha's breastbone here as early as the 3rd century BC.   Our last stop was the "Buddha Park" or Xieng Khuan was as you would guess and park of many Budda's. On our way we stopped at a silk factory ...

Vientiane 9 - 11th August ...

... out my next destination. Not wanting to walk for a while, I decided to get a tuk-tuk to the Buddha Park at Xieng Khuan, about 25km from Vientiane. It would be my first glimpse of the Lao countryside, or so I thought. What I saw during the ...

... : Vientiane is a VERY sleepy little capital. Not a whole lot to see or do, IMHO, tho it's nice enough for a day or two. Buddha Park near the Thai border was cool. Spent a day in bed with a fever and horrible cough. God, what are the symptoms of ...

... on the banks of the Mekong some fifteen miles outside of Vientiane lies a curious little bit of real estate: Xieng Kuan, or the Buddha Park. It's a haphazard assortment of statues, both Buddhist and Hindu, ranging in size from a few feet to the ...