2. January 2018 10:01
by Rene Pallesen
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One of the sights we wanted to visit was Buddha Park outside Vientiane (close to the border crossing back into Thailand).
Trying to figure out the most comfortable way to get there we settled on taking the local bus. There aren't any taxis as such in Vientiane and we weren't keen taking a tuk-tuk for 30 kilometers. Most of the tuk-tuks are in an extremely poor shape with failing brakes, wobbling wheels and thick smoke coming out of the exhaust pipes.
They are perfectly fine for shorter trips inside the city (such as hotel to bus station), but not recommended for longer trips.
The bus turned out to be easy to find and we were early enough to all get a seat. The bus was later packed with passengers going to Thailand and it would have been tough to stand up for the one hour bus ride.
The bus is also really convenient in that it stops right outside Buddha Park which is the last stop before the bus turns around and heads back to Vientiane.
Buddha Park itself was apparently established by a Monk building the statues for religious purposes as education of his religious beliefs.
It is actually a nice little area and quite interesting with lots of (to us) weird statues showing bizarre things.
The most obvious is the massive 'pumpkin' at the entrance that you can climb. Each level inside the the sculpture itself represents hell, earth and sky.
The entrance is a head with a clock above it - meaning swallowed up by time?
There is also a massive reclining buddha.
And my favourite was the large centre sculpture carrying the body of a woman...no idea what this is supposed to represent.
