Vientiane: Day 1 (Part 3)

17 November 2016

Then, to lunch at a local restaurant beside the Mekong river. Just across the river is Thailand. Countries bordered by a river. Here I tasted my first Beer Lao, and it was good! I think I like it even more than Bintang Beer in Indonesia. What I want to know is, why there is no local beer in Malaysia.

Anyway. For lunch we had local food which consisted of sticky rice (you have to roll it into a ball and eat it with the dishes), tilapia from the Mekong river cooked with lemongrass, spicy papaya salad, water buffalo beef lap (salad) and a plate of fresh herbs – basil, kafir leaves and another vegetable that I do not know. The papaya salad was spicy and according to Silvia, the beef lap even more so, and I was surprised to learn that Lao people loved spicy food. I’ll fit right in!

After lunch we went to Pha That Louang, an important stupa built in 1566 and reconstructed in 1930, considered the symbol of Laos as it is the most important Laotian religious and national monument. The top is covered with pure gold. The architecture of the stupa is in Lao style influenced by Buddhist beliefs.

Locals say that it was originally built as early as the third century to house a breastbone of the Lord Buddha brought to Laos by an Indian missionary. However, the current structure was built by King Setthathirat in 1566 on the site of a 13th century Khmer ruin. He named Vientiane the capital after Luang Prabang in the mid-sixteenth century. There is a statue of him in front of the main entrance to That Luang. We just missed a big celebration as we could see the remnants of the same all around the stupa grounds. We went around the stupa and lit a candle.

Beside this there was a temple known as Vat Sisaket. This is a beautiful temple dating back to 1818. It has thousands of tiny Buddha images and rows with hundreds of seated Buddhas. These images mainly date from the 16^th to 19^th centuries and come in all sizes and are made from wood, stone and bronze – more than 6,800 Buddhas in total.

We were supposed to visit another temple, Vat Phra Keo but unfortunately it is under construction at the moment. Apparently this temple used to house the Emerald Buddha. According to our guide, legend has it that the Emerald Buddha was forged in Sri Lanka, and then given to Cambodia as a gift. A prince in Thailand fell in love with a princess from Cambodia and as a wedding gift, the princess’ father gave the Emerald Buddha to Thailand. Laos and Thailand then had some dispute and the Emerald Buddha was taken to Laos from Thailand, and currently it is back in Bangkok, Thailand.