Wat Xieng Khuan (‘Spirit City’) is 25 kms southeast of Vientiane, near Thadeua, the old crossing place into Laos. It was built by Luang Pu Bunleua Sulilat, a shaman-priest, in 1958. He had studied with a Hindu rishi in Vietnam, and this was his attempt at syncretising Hinduism and Buddhism. The images are made of concrete, and the largest and most impressive is a 40-metre long reclining Buddha. After the revolution in 1975, Sulilat fled to Thailand, where he built another similar sculpture park in Nong Khai.