Birthday Day 2: Buddha Park (Xieng Khuan)

SO the fun continued the next day with the MCC falang (foreigners). We all went out to brunch at Kung's Cafe for their famous mango sticky rice pancakes! SO GOOD! But I loved this place immediately. even before the food, because it is hidden away down a residential alley. When you get to the end of the alley, there is Kung's,. hidden behind a veil of jungle (see the pic of my friend Crystal walking into the cafe). The whole cafe is super small (five tables), outdoors under a tin roof shelter that doesnt seem like a tin roof because there are vines hanging from the ceiling and just plants everywhere! It's such a great atmosphere: and great food too!

After finishing our food, we headed down the road, 25k outside of Vientiane, to Buddha Park (or in Lao it's known as Xieng Khuan or "Spirit City". It is this grass area filled with hundreds (?) of stone sculptures inspired by Buddhist and Hindu mythology. They look like they are hundreds of years old...but actually, this park was designed and built in 1958 by an interesting "eccentric" yogi-priest-shaman man who was known for his fusion of Hinduism and Buddhism. Apparently he had a fairly large Lao following in the 1970s.
There are two large monuments in the park: the reclining Buddha and the huge stone orb (see pic below. ps. the girl in the picture is Becky!).


It has three levels: hell, earth, and heaven. The tree on top is the tree of life. If you enter through the mouth of the monster creature you can actually take tiny little passageways and steep stone stairs to climb your way to the top.
Each level is complete with stone carvings representing the three levels. What surprised me was how many snake carvings there were in heaven! That must be the Hinduism influence I guess...if that's an accurate depiction, I dont want to go to heaven!

Once you made it out, there was a GREAT view of the whole park!


There were a LOT of snakes represented in the park...here's a picture of me with one! I've gotten to the point that these stone ones don't actually bother me!

Here's the reclining Buddha...and if you look really closely...you might even see a "reclining Lisa"...

To beat the heat our crew took a little afternoon break at the park's one restaurant. (I love how cute these little huts are...but I have to say, they aren't the most comfortable places to sit...)
I ordered a coconut water...and it came in the largest coconut I had EVER SEEN! As thirsty as I was, I just couldn't finish it, heck, I could hardly carry it!