Pha That Luang Golden Stupa, COPE UXO Visitor Centre, Buddha Park Concrete Sculptures, Morning Alms Giving & Mekong River Sunset
📍 Vientiane, Laos📅 3-day itinerary
The smallest and most tranquil capital in Southeast Asia — founded by King Setthathirath of the Lan Xang Kingdom on the Mekong River bank in 1560, where the Pha That Luang (the 45-metre gold-painted lotus-spire stupa, the national symbol of Laos, on every kip banknote) and the 6,840 Buddha statues in the Wat Si Saket cloisters survive from the era before the Siamese army looted and burned virtually every building in 1828, and where the COPE Visitor Centre documents the 80 million unexploded cluster bomblets (from 270 million dropped by US aircraft 1964-1973 in the "Secret War") that still kill 50 Laotians per year.
The Pha That Luang Where the 1828 Siamese Army Dynamited the 1566 Setthathirath Stupa (Rebuilt from the 3rd-Century BCE Ashokan Original) and the French Reconstructed It from Historical Engravings in 1931-1935 — the National Symbol of Laos Is a 1930s French Cement Reconstruction
The COPE Visitor Centre Where the Replica CBU-24 Cluster Bomblet ("Bombie") — the Tennis-Ball-Sized Submunition That 30% of the 270 Million Dropped Failed to Explode — Is Shown Alongside the Prosthetic Legs of the 50 Annual Victims Who Still Trigger Them With Hoes and Machetes in 25% of the Country's Land Area
The Wat Si Saket Cloisters with 6,840 Buddha Images in Niches (the Only Temple in Vientiane Spared by the 1828 Siamese Army That Burned Everything Else — Probably Because It Was Built in the Siamese Style by King Anouvong Who Was Trying to Appease Siam) and the Haw Phra Kaew That Used to House the Emerald Buddha Now in Bangkok