Vientiane a la 1909

    by Mme. Marthe Bassenne

        translated from French by W.E.J. Tips

Vientiane! The Colombert sailed in at 8:30 a.m. and we climbed the banks not without trouble, because the embankment was so much the higher since the level of the water had fallen. Ah! This receding of the water, how it worried us! Our first question of Mr. Mahe, who waited for us on the bank, testified our worries: "Can one go to Luang Prabang?"--"Yes, yes, the La Grandiere is ready, you will leave tomorrow."

We walked towards the residence: three charming pavilions in the middle of flowering grassland, constructed where earlier the palace of the old kings of Vientiane stood. We took asylum in a wing that is reserved for guests. The central pavilion was inhabited by the resident superieur. It drew special attention to its very large hall that runs all along the front of the building--a sort of waiting room or atrium--where earlier the local chiefs assembled and, along the perimeter of which, are aligned enormous, bronze Buddhas. These statues stand on platforms in the three classical postures: reclining Buddhas, Buddhas standing in the preaching position, and Buddhas seated cross-legged, one arm pulled back to the navel, the other extended to the toe. They all had the same arched waist, the same graceful body; the head, with fine traits, with a fixed smile, was crowned by a pointed tiara or a skullcap formed out of some sort of rounded balls arranged in regular rows.

They are able to rest in their own country, these dethroned gods, but, how many others, torn away from the ruins, have left for unforeseen destinations! Previously, no European would leave Laos without taking in his baggage some specimen of a lost art and the pagodas were thus being denuded. The time is not far when the Laotian gods will be everywhere, except in Laos. The Administration has strictly forbidden this exodus. The customs of Khone refuse the passage of every Buddha, big or small, that gets there. It concerns us very little since we have never thought of encumbering ourselves with such voluminous travel souvenirs. We are content to admire the Buddhas at home, in the midst of all these old ruins that tell of a prosperous past.

Poor country! At the onset of our excursion today in the old Vientiane, we understood the desolation that was doomed its fate. Before, it was the capital of a flourishing Laotian Kingdom, as Luang Prabang was too. What is left of this today? The bellicose Siamese came during the last century, destroyed the temples, seized their riches and harnessed in chains women and children whom these gentle people had not been able to defend. The conquered were dispatched to Bangkok as slaves--yet unknown to them--and the devastated country was left to mourn in solitude. Here, just like in Angkor, the tropical vegetation has thrown a veil over so many disasters. Unfortunately, the roots of the giant trees have continued the Siamese work of destruction, deceitfully weakening the foundations of the temples that were still standing, and the intertwining lianas have beheaded the precarious frontons!

Our walk lasted into the night. Haphazardly we met with smashed open walls, demolished enclosures, and sculptures that were buried under brambles, which we stumbled over. All these old temples-wats in Laotian language--were constructed of small, fired, earthen bricks, imperfectly baked and coated with a mortar so hard, so resistant, that the workers have carved it as if they carve stone. Everywhere fine scrolls decorated the cornices and the bases. Menacing snakes and horned dragons spiral around the columns, all made with this marvelous mortar. We must note that it was reinforced, since they found iron bars in the bodies of these fantastic beasts. In some places, underlining the sculptures, pieces of ceramic--usually reflecting blues or white that the fine dust of centuries has dulled or which crumbled in days of disaster--are encrusted in the cement.

Certainly, the same inspiration that created the monuments of Angkor, the pearl of Cambodia, has given birth to, some centuries ago, these ruined temples of Laos. Only Angkor, having been constructed in hard stone, has better resisted the devastating onslaught of the forest, while these wats of Vientiane, which, one believes to be of a later date, have been demolished almost to their foundation. For example, what remains of the Phyawat? Some shaky walls, grand masks that are mutilated and turn moldy in the grass and a delightful entrance to the temple: two slender colonnades that support a pinnacle with five decayed foundation stones, ending in a pointed spire. But what refinement in the detail of the sculptures! Each part is so undercut, subdivided, and worked open in ornaments with the chisel that the whole gives the impression of the work of a goldsmith. Set in equilibrium on these two colonnades is a sort of tiara, colossal, yes, but nevertheless fragile and light because of the serration. And here, behind this pinnacle that serves as an eternal crown, appear, seated unshakably on his plinth, a giant Buddha of six to eight meters tall, surviving impassively the decaying of the temple. He is there, under the sole archway of the sky, braving the bad weathers which have smeared to his body a green leprosy. A vigorous tree, born in the debris of a wall, extends the shadow of its leaves over his head as supreme protection. It is impressive beyond belief, this image of divinity that victoriously rises up above the rubble.

Even more impressive were the three Buddhas, abandoned at the edge of the forest, along a road full of ruts that loses itself in the forest. The shrubs encircle this colossus in bronze unable, however, to smother it: the three heads rise above the foliage, spreading open their branches, as if these metal statues were marching to some sanctuary. What are they doing there, on the naked soil, these old gods, when around them there is not even some debris of an enclosure which could explain their presence? Where can one find the secret of this past, every day more obscure, more impenetrable? Mysterious statues sculpted in imperishable material does your survival matter, if humanity merciful for the human suffering of the past--can not read on your closed lips the events that have dispersed your adorers and covered your altars with blood? The calmness of your immortality makes our ignorance even more disconcerting.

The Siamese have not but dragged with them slaves; they have not but looted jewelry. There was in the Phra Keo, the most renowned of the pagodas in the Laotian country, a Buddha with an emerald head that was the glory and the protection of Vientiane. Graceful legends idolized it and we were told that the Siamese were faced with all the trouble in the world for taking it away. It grounded the boats that carried it, and disappeared to the bottom of the rivers of Siam, then it was found back in its dear Phra Keo, mysteriously transported without anyone knowing how. Nevertheless, today it is in Bangkok and the Siamese, to reconcile it with its exile, have constructed for it, based on the plans which were discovered in the Wat in Vientiane, a new Phra Keo that is one of the most beautiful pagodas of Bangkok. However, it is said that if a pilgrim from Vientiane comes to visit it in its new temple, the emerald Buddha will cry before his eyes, so nostalgic is it for Laos.

Of Phra Keo, there is only a ruined enclosure left, walls veiled with lianas and two porticos with delicate spires. One of these porticos has conserved intact its door in precious, carved wood, where grimacing dwarfs support costumed spirits, displaying hieratic gestures, on their heads.

A single pagoda of Vientiane remains. It is Sisaket, or the Pagoda of the Oath; the priests of a monastery are in charge of it. The chiefs of the neighboring provinces come to it, on fixed dates, to pay tribute to the representative of France, in the same gesture of vassalage that Bangkok demanded from them before. The walls of Wat Sisaket are covered with frescos that are glaringly illuminated in the style of the Far East; warriors and princes are seated astride horses--without observing the laws of perspective--and according to legends, the significance of which we find not the time to search for.

That left us to visit a strange and gigantic religious, rather well conserved, monument some kilometers away from Vientiane--the That Luang. A that is a very slender construction in masonry, usually in the form of a sort of a pointed church tower. It seems that the erection of these thats derives from an ancient cult, much earlier than Buddhism, which has merged with it and numerous traces of which are found in Laos and Siam. In as much as the Laotians do not venerate the dead as the neighboring people, some tombs are surmounted by thats. Do the ashes of a great person rest below the pile of cemented bricks that one calls the That Luang of Vientiane? Or else, was it never more than the symbol of a cult lost today or corrupted by traditions? When one emerges in the open space that isolates it from the forest, majestic, under the pale sky, it seemed to be a challenge thrown at death, at nothingness.

The That Luang consists, in reality, of several thats: first an enormously big, central one; then all around, on the sides of a square, thirty-two thats that are smaller, more detailed, and that barely reach the first plinth of the giant that. Several of these have deteriorated somewhat, others are decapitated and there are attempts at present at striving to restore all. Finally, a dilapidated wall in ruins, atop and adjoining railing in masonry, encircles the monument. This wall, separated from the line of the thats by a circular path, measures, it seems to me, about seventy or eighty meters to the side. In the center of each side, a small pavilion that serves as an entrance, forms an exterior projection and offers, under its curved back roof remnants--in the fashion of the Far East--the remainders of a fine work of sculpture. Inside, all along the length of the wall, is a covered gallery --a sort of inner courtyard that formerly sheltered a large number of Buddhas. Twelve very beautiful images remain.

Today, one sees a resurgence of the That Luang from its torpor. Preparations for the festivities of the twelfth month, or the Laotian New Year, are on going. We will observe them, but more impressive, in Luang Prabang. Workers provisionally reconstruct parts of the gallery that have crumble with bamboo and mats. They construct platforms on which actors, dances and singers invited to the festivities, will perform as in some kind of religious fancy-fair, to which the whole of Vientiane will attend next week.

Excerpted from In Laos and Siam. Published by White Lotus. Available at fine book stores everywhere.

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