Wat Sisaket

Wat Si Saket located in Vientiane is famous for its cloister wall housing thousands of tiny Buddha images and rows with hundreds of seated Buddhas. These images mainly date from the 16th and 19th centuries and come in all sizes and are made from wood, stone and bronze – more than 6,800 Buddhas in total. If visiting the temple early in the morning, visitors will come across the many locals that go to pray and make merit as well as to offer food to the monks. It is a charming daily ceremony to witness. The temple is quite shady as it is surrounded by tropical fruit trees.

Wat Si Saket is not only famous for the interior walls of the cloister but it also has beautiful architecture and layout with history dated back to 1818. Among the many interesting features there are its lovely surrounding verandas, an ornate five-tiered roof, a drum tower, a small library building with a Burmese-style roof and the flowered ceiling of the ordination hall. Located opposite the Presidential Palace, the temple was built by Chao Anuvong, the last king of the Lan Xang Kingdom in early Bangkok-style architecture mixed with its own unique style. It survived the Siamese-Lao war of 1828 and has become the oldest Buddhist monastery in Laos. Art enthusiasts will be thrilled to see many figurines and sculptures fashioned by highly skilled craftsmen such as the five-metre long beautiful detailed wooden naga (in Sanskrit, it means serpent deity) as well as a Khmer-style Buddha seated on a coiled naga.