Buddhism
ພູສີ
Mount Phousi
“A hill in the middle of a city, watching over both its rivers”
Scenes
Meaning
You climb the three hundred and sixty steps and catch your breath, and below you the Mekong and the Khan wind around the town while far ridges fold away into the haze.
A hill of about a hundred meters rising in the middle of the old town of Luang Prabang, regarded as the sacred axis of the city. At its summit stands the golden stupa of That Chomsi, said to have been raised in 1804, and a cave on the way up enshrines a mark held to be a footprint of the Buddha. Its name means 'sacred hill,' and at new year people climb it to circle the stupa and open the year. At dusk the whole city, held between two rivers, opens out beneath it.
Field notes
- Location
- Luang Prabang · Laos · N19.9° · E102.1°
- Best time
- Early morning at sunrise — fewer people, and river mist over the town
- Getting there
- Climbed by stairway (about 360 steps) from the old town of Luang Prabang.
- Etiquette
- Quiet is kept around the summit stupa, which is circled clockwise.
Sources
- · UNESCO World Heritage (Luang Prabang)
- · Encyclopaedia Britannica
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