Laos - Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Northern Thailand - page 641

throne room, where the golden trimmed walls are painted deep red and encrusted with a
feast of mosaic-work in Japanese coloured mirror glass.
Behind the throne room are the former royal family's residential quarters, left as they
were when King Savang Vatthana was forcibly evicted by the communist regime in 1975.
Beneath, but entered from the western side, is a series of exhibition halls used for tem-
porary exhibits. Separate outbuildings display the Floating Buddha collection of meditation
photographs, and the five-piece Royal Palace Car Collection MAP , including two 1960s Lin-
coln Continentals, a rare wing-edged 1958 Edsel Citation, and a dilapidated Citroën DS.
No single treasure in Laos is more historically resonant than the Pha Bang MAP , an
83cm-tall gold-alloy Buddha for which the whole city is named. Its arrival here in 1512
spiritually legitimised the Lan Xang royal dynasty as Buddhist rulers. The Siamese twice
carried the Pha Bang off to Thailand (in 1779 and 1827) but it was finally restored to Laos
by King Mongkut (Rama IV) in 1867. Nearing completion in the southeast corner of the
palace gardens, Wat Ho Pha Bang MAP is a soaring, multiroofed temple designed to eventu-
ally house the Pha Bang Buddha. For now, however, the Pha Bang lives in an easy-to-miss
little room surrounded by engraved elephant tusks and three silk screens embroidered by
the former queen. To find it, walk east along the palace's exterior south terrace and peep
in between the bars at the eastern end.
Footwear cannot be worn inside the museum, no photography is permitted and you
must leave bags in a locker room to the left-hand side of the main entrance.

Phu Si
MAP
(admission 20,000K; 8am-6pm) A favourite with sunset junkies, the unmissable 100m-tall
hill of Phu Si is crowned by a 24m gilded stupa called That Chomsi MAP . Viewed from a
distance, especially when floodlit at night, the structure seems to float in the hazy air.
Ascending Phu Si from the north side (329 steps), stop at the decaying Wat Pa Huak
MAP (admission by donation) . It has a splendid carved wood Buddha riding Airavata, the
three-headed elephant from Hindu mythology, and original 19th-century murals in its in-
terior.
Reaching That Chomsi is also possible from the south and east sides. Two such paths
climb through large Wat Siphoutthabat Thippharam MAP to a curious miniature shrine that
protects a Buddha Footprint MAP

HILL

. Directly southwest of here a series of new gilded