Xieng Khuan Cultural Park, or commonly known as Buddha Park is a sculpture garden housing a collection of Buddhist and Hindu sculptures in a park-like setting on the bank of Mekong river, 23 kilometers from Vientiane.
Visiting this place in the past is somewhat painful as it didn’t have much information to tell you stories and meaning of each sculpture group. Fortunately, now the place is improved a lot in terms of accommodations such as footpath, restrooms, and more importantly the “audio tour” service which enables you to explore this magnificent place by yourself in much more informative ways.
This means you don’t have to hire a tour guide to take you around and tell you stories about each sculpture in the park.
At the entrance, you can buy a specific ticket at the cost of 15,000 kips to experience an audio tour. Bring the ticket to the nearby counter to get your E-Guide device along with a scenic guide route map and a pair of headsets. Now you’re ready to explore!
Upon switching on the device (normally switched on by the staff), you can press the “L” button to choose your preferred language. This device supports seven languages namely Lao, Chinese, Korean, English, French, Vietnamese and Thai.
With a total of 66 points of interesting sculpture groups, you can start with number “1” by pressing “1” and a “play” button to listen to the narrator’s introduction about the park. The number “2” is the first point you will see which is one of the most striking sculptures in the shape of a giant pumpkin with three floors. Pressing the ‘next’ button will lead you to the story of the next sculpture.
Pressing any number and a play button to listen to the story of any sculpture you want to know about in case you want to skip some of them. However, we suggest you listen to all of them as we don’t want you to miss interesting information.
It will take you some time to walk through all the sculptures and know all the stories behind them. When finishing your audio tour, don’t forget to return the device at the counter where you get it from.
This is all we’ve got to tell you about this new and interesting service in Buddha Park. Enjoy your visiting to this scenic site!
The park opens daily from 8 am until 4:30 pm.
