Sala Kaew Ku

“Sala Kaew Ku, Nong Khai, Thailand, next to the Thai-Lao border, on the banks of the Mekong. Extravagant fantasy and gigantism, some of the Sala Keoku fantastic concrete sculptures rise up to 25m in the sky. Luang Pu Bounleua Sulilat, a thai-lao mystic, is the creator of Sala Kaew Ku that faces Xieng Khuan, the other park created by the artist, on the lao side, near Vientiane. It is a travel in the karmic wheel of life, the cycle of birth and death.Those statues include a monumental Buddha meditating under the protection of a seven-headed Naga snake. I showed a few pictures of this gigantic Naga to a woman. She stopped to move, fixing the picture like the one of an old friend almost forgotten and whose you re trying to remember the name, confusion and fear suddenly appeared on her face, and then, she just said : “That, it exists”. She meant, “They are alive”. I answered “I know”. Little brave birds are singing on their tongues for us. Would you cross the fence to become a buddha statue ?”