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TAKE A HIKE
Wandering through a vision of religious union Outside the laidback streets of Vientiane, Laos’ capital city, lies a field of dreams – a vision created by a yogi-priest-shaman in the 1950s. The park, or ‘spirit city’, is a mass of Buddhist and Hindu sculptures, each telling a unique story. Village Voice reporter Lauren Farrow recently toured the park.
Carvings of Shiva and Ganesh and a huge spike tree-like sculpture greet visitors to Xieng Khuan or the ‘spirit city’ outside Vientiane.
Travelling through Laos is much like taking a hike through heaven, earth and hell. Heaven because it’s one of the least developed countries in the world and as a consequence has thick, lush forests. Earth because you are constantly reminded about the food chain, with chickens, goats, cows, dogs, cats and their offspring running around everywhere. And hell because you can see heaven being destroyed through plans to build environmentally destructive hydroelectric dams and the stringent (albeit hidden) role communism plays in people’s lives. These contradictions are summed up best in a park 24 kilometres out of the country’s capital, Vientiane, which has a population of around 235,000, and is the laziest, calmest capital I have visited. Beyond the central city and along a road where people have surely disappeared down pot holes, is a park of epic proportions. Here dreams come true. At least Bunleua Sulilat’s did. In 1958 Bunleua, a yogi-priest-shaman had a vision to create a peaceful union between two religions. In a twist of fate he met a Hindu
rishi or sage (legend has it that Bunleua fell through a hole and landed in the man’s lap), who helped Bunleua with his vision of creating a religious spectacle that merged Hindu and Buddhist myth and iconography through the use of concrete, cement and a lot of imagination. The result is Xieng Khuan, meaning ‘spirit city’, or for westerners: Buddha Park. A giant pumpkin-shaped sculpture topped with a treelike spike is the first thing you see at the park. To enter the pumpkin (due to the lack of English signs I don’t know its correct title) you pass through a giant mouth, belonging to a tribal mask like creature, with a clock on its head that tells the time of 12.35. The first floor of the pumpkin represents hell or, as one local informed us, the past. It is dark here, never more so than in the inner chamber where you can just make out sculptures striking often malformed positions. Up a level is earth or the present, where sculptures good humouredly go about their daily chores. On top lies heaven or the future: a place where we do away with the effort of walking and exist just as a
RESTAURANT
235 Darling St, Balmain 9818 3272 www.indianpalace.com.au 58 VILLAGE VOICE DRUMMOYNE January
1121106
Private Party rooms available for 20 – 120 guests Free home delivery in Balmain, Rozelle, Birchgrove & Lilyfield 15% discount on pick-ups Open 7 nights – Licensed and BYO
Wandering through a vision of religious union Outside the laidback streets of Vientiane, Laos’ capital city, lies a field of dreams – a vision created by a yogi-priest-shaman in the 1950s. The park, or ‘spirit city’, is a mass of Buddhist and Hindu sculptures, each telling a unique story. Village Voice reporter Lauren Farrow recently toured the park.
Carvings of Shiva and Ganesh and a huge spike tree-like sculpture greet visitors to Xieng Khuan or the ‘spirit city’ outside Vientiane.
Travelling through Laos is much like taking a hike through heaven, earth and hell. Heaven because it’s one of the least developed countries in the world and as a consequence has thick, lush forests. Earth because you are constantly reminded about the food chain, with chickens, goats, cows, dogs, cats and their offspring running around everywhere. And hell because you can see heaven being destroyed through plans to build environmentally destructive hydroelectric dams and the stringent (albeit hidden) role communism plays in people’s lives. These contradictions are summed up best in a park 24 kilometres out of the country’s capital, Vientiane, which has a population of around 235,000, and is the laziest, calmest capital I have visited. Beyond the central city and along a road where people have surely disappeared down pot holes, is a park of epic proportions. Here dreams come true. At least Bunleua Sulilat’s did. In 1958 Bunleua, a yogi-priest-shaman had a vision to create a peaceful union between two religions. In a twist of fate he met a Hindu
rishi or sage (legend has it that Bunleua fell through a hole and landed in the man’s lap), who helped Bunleua with his vision of creating a religious spectacle that merged Hindu and Buddhist myth and iconography through the use of concrete, cement and a lot of imagination. The result is Xieng Khuan, meaning ‘spirit city’, or for westerners: Buddha Park. A giant pumpkin-shaped sculpture topped with a treelike spike is the first thing you see at the park. To enter the pumpkin (due to the lack of English signs I don’t know its correct title) you pass through a giant mouth, belonging to a tribal mask like creature, with a clock on its head that tells the time of 12.35. The first floor of the pumpkin represents hell or, as one local informed us, the past. It is dark here, never more so than in the inner chamber where you can just make out sculptures striking often malformed positions. Up a level is earth or the present, where sculptures good humouredly go about their daily chores. On top lies heaven or the future: a place where we do away with the effort of walking and exist just as a
RESTAURANT
235 Darling St, Balmain 9818 3272 www.indianpalace.com.au 58 VILLAGE VOICE DRUMMOYNE January
1121106
Private Party rooms available for 20 – 120 guests Free home delivery in Balmain, Rozelle, Birchgrove & Lilyfield 15% discount on pick-ups Open 7 nights – Licensed and BYO
