Buddha Park, Outside Vientiane, Laos

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Known to the Lao people as Xieng Khuan (Spirit City), this park was built in 1958 by a yogi-priest-shaman Bunleua Silulat. He fused Buddhist and Hindu images in over 200 statues creating a very surreal environment to spend an afternoon. It sits on the banks of the Mekong River that separates this part of Laos from the Isaan area of Thailand.


There is also a counterpart just on the other side of the River in Nong Khai, Thailand. It is also about 2 km from the Lao-Thai Friendship Bridge. It was a beautiful but dusty motorbike ride out there. I hung out on top of the pumpkin-looking thing with a Lao kid and a girl from Mozambique. I asked her if she ever heard the Bob Dylan song Mozambique.

She didn't believe he had ever been there to write a song about it.
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Oh, and it was hot as hell!!!!!!

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