Wat Phou: a miracle waiting to happen.

• Author: Massey, Ruth

Wat Phou: A miracle waiting to happen

CHAMPASSAK WAS ANIMATED despite the sweltering heat of mid-morning. Women dressed in sarong-like skirts and white blouses converged on the community hall that overlooks the palm-shaded river meandering through the town. The women of Champassak had been cooking for several days now; enough rice, fish, pork and poultry to feed the whole town and its guests. Many of the men were inside the hall awaiting the arrival of a group of visitors from Vientiane. They had seen the orange dust cloud in the wake of the vehicle bearing the visitors long before it came to a halt in front of the community hall. The group of men and women who emerged--Laotian, American, Indian, Bulgarian and English--had all been waiting for this moment: their first glimpse of Wat Phou, the legendary temple that had been built in this remote corner of Laos in the days of the Khmer Empire.

While the elders led the visitors into the community hall, an orchestra struck up an undulating rhythmic song played on traditional instruments: flutes, clarinets, xylophones with bamboo cross-pieces, drums, cymbals, and the khen, a hand-held pipe organ that is the national instrument. In a large room about 70 men sat around a centrepiece in the form of a tree made from banana leaves and flowers and surrounded by symbolic foods. The baci ceremony, marking the importance of the occasion, was about to start. While a lay priest intoned benedictions and prayers, the hosts tied cotton strips around the wrists of their guests, symbolizing good health, prosperity and happiness.

At the banquet that followed the baci, women served steaming dishes of fish, pork and chicken and the staple of all Laotian meals--sticky rice. There were toasts in lau lao, the potent locally-brewed rice liquor, followed by speeches dedicated to the purpose of this gathering: the restoration of Wat Phou.

Built by the Khmer kings on the slopes of the mountain that emerged from the forest surrounding this small provincial town, Wat Phou is in ruins. Champassak was celebrating the fact that it was about to be saved from the tidal wave of vegetation in which the heavenly dancers of its bas-reliefs were drowning. The visitors represented years of effort by the Government of Laos and the international community to save this national treasure, efforts that had now culminated in UNDP and UNESCO agreeing to finance and assist in the renovation work, and in the establishment of a museum in...