Nong Khai - Sala Keo Kou

This place – just east of Nongkhai city center off the road to Phon Pisai and near the alligator farm – is a large collection of concrete statues. To create these statues was the life aspiration of one man, Luang Pu Bunluea Surirat.

Bunleua Sulilat (1932-1996) was a Thai spiritual cult leader that inspired his followers to build numerous concrete sculptures. While he as a young man studied Buddhism, he grew convinced that the teachings of all regions could and should be mixed together. Therefore, there are Buddha images in different poses, Hindu gods, as well as character figures from the Ramayana epic and from Thai folk legends.

His venture into creating sculptures started in 1958 when he – for reasons I don’t know - ventured into Laos and a “Buddha Park” east of Vientiane. Twenty years later, he commenced work on a new sculpture park, Sala Keo Phou, on the other side of the Mekong River. 

I visited that “Buddha Park” almost 14 years ago and really wondered what purpose such a statue collection located 30 kilometers or so from Vientiane served. 

Now, after my visit to Sala Keo Kou armed with vastly improved proficiency in the local language, I have a better idea about the purpose.

Entrance to the Sala Keo Kou used to be free of charge, but a fee of 20 baht per person must now be paid. It was at first 10 baht (and only for white foreigners), but with such a low fee and with only few farang visitors, no income was generated. The money collected goes to spruce up the park with bushes and flowers and to repair / refurbish the concrete statues and their inscriptions. Weather and age were not kind to the statues, so it had become quite a challenge to read the inscription describing the scene depicted.

Now, things are better and it is recommended that you drop by if you anyway happen to be visiting Nongkhai city.