I’ve been on the road for two days now. My goal was Thakhek  which is just a little bit too far to do in one day.

 Just a short distance outside Vientiane is a park called Xieng Khuan Buddha park. It is meadow full of Buddhist and Hindu statues. Though many of them look ancient they were made using concrete starting in 1958 by a priest-shaman called Luang Pu Bunleua Sulilat. The statues depict all manner of gods and creatures out of Buddhist and Hindu mythology; it’s a mix between weird and scary. The most prominent statue is a large pumpkin-like thing, the inside of which depicts Buddhist hell.

  • The hell pumpkin
  • Corridor inside the pumpkin
  • Angry god holding a skull
  •  Demon preparing to decapitate some poor fellow
  • Some serpent people 
  • View from the top of the pumpkin 

Scenes from the life of the Buddha 

  • This woman seems strangely happy for someone whose lower body is being eaten by a snake
  • Three headed elephant, why not
  • Kind of stupa at the end of the park
  • The park from the other end
  • Pulling a grasshoppers leg for some reason 
  • This guy is really scary 
  • This is also a strange scene
  • Strange looking guy with dangerous shoes
  • Reclining Buddha 
  • Multi faced guy with a skull hat
  • Lots of Buddhas 

After visiting the statue park I set off towards Thakhek. The first few kilometers after leaving the park was dirt road and though it’s not the worst I’ve been on during this trip it was a pretty good baptism of fire for my new and improved luggage rack. I am happy to report that the rack held up, seemingly without damage. Once I got back on the main road things went smoothly. I stopped for the night in a small town called Pakxan, nothing much to see there, but there was a decent guesthouse; the lady at the reception actually spoke good English.

The road from the statue park (the not so bumpy part)

I left Pakxan in the morning, thinking it might take some time but it was smooth going and I reached Thakhek early afternoon. I spent the rest of the afternoon preparing for the next part of my journey, looking up maps and buying provisions. In the evening I met a Dutch couple who have been traveling by motorbike all the way from the Netherlands. We spent the evening drinking beer and swapping stories of bad roads and breakdowns.