Travelling Alixon : Vientiane: Concrete

Concrete is used a lot in Lao PDR: I guess it’s cheap, withstands the climate as well as or better than most other materials, and is pretty easy to replace when needed. It is unsightly when it’s aged but no more so than any other material.

Patuxai is one of the most well-known symbols of Vientiane: the Lao tourist pamphlets sometimes refer to it as the Arc de Triomphe of southeast Asia. It came about because in the early 1960s the Americans (who were friendly with the unpopular royalist Lao who’d been nominally left in charge once the French departed) decided they’d like a runway in Vientiane and gave the concrete to build it. The Lao had had enough of American aeroplanes – Laos remains the most bombed country, per capita, in the world – and the local consensus was that they wouldn’t like a runway in Vientiane, so to avoid further arguments they turned the concrete into a monument. The Lao are typically realistic about the aesthetic merit of Patuxay, however!

Another memorable concrete construction is the Cultural Hall: an immense gilded meringue of a building! For much of the time I’ve visited Vientiane it’s been run down, squatted in by guards and only opened a couple of times a year, for state events. Recently it seems to be undergoing a makeover – hopefully they’ll keep the ornate OTT nature and open it to the public. It must have been fabulous inside in its heyday!

Down by the Mekong one of the Belgian restaurants has a very spooky Tintin sculpture. When the restaurant’s open he holds a menu card; in the early morning he never fails to give me a start when I'm out walking!

Namphou (fountain) is a big graceful bowl lined with water jets in the centre of an old square lined with French restaurants. It used to be very pleasant sitting outdoors and watching the water spray. In the last couple of years Namphou has undergone a makeover: there is an inner ring of seating for Thai style restaurants, a karaoke stage with very loud music and now the water comes in coloured sprays. It’s a radical change from the old fountain square!

Buddha park, about 25km or 30 minutes’ drive out of Vientiane, is one man’s sculpture garden. Bunleua Sulilat “took on monumental sculpting” and populated the park between 1958 and 1978, when he was forced to flee to Thailand and start a new sculpture garden across the Mekong (apparently the urge to monumentally sculpt is strong). The largest sculpture is an immense reclining Buddha, and there are many other Buddhas, as well as Hindu gods and other quirky sculptures. It is very strange and great fun to wander round!