Word: luangprabang
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Laos one rainy day last week, Premier Tiao Somsanith, 47, assembled the top members of his Cabinet and flew north from Vientiane to the royal city of Luangprabang on a matter of some urgency: the burial of the late King Sisavan Vong, who has been preserved in formaldehyde since last October. By long tradition, a Laotian King must be buried in a coffin made from a sandalwood tree that had been growing for centuries for this predestined purpose. This tree had just been found, and Sisavang Vong could at last be laid to rest. But even as Somsanith...
...Famille. Even in Vientiane no one took this suggestion seriously-and Vientiane was all of Laos that Kongle controlled. Troops in Luangprabang were still loyal to Premier Somsanith. Each side was kept from having to attack the other by the fact that the road between Vientiane and Luangprabang was washed out by the monsoon. Most of the 28,000-man Laotian army scattered throughout the country either had not heard of the revolt at all or reacted with Laos' soft, favorite phrase, "be pen nyan [it doesn't matter]." To break this stalemate, Kongle suggested the formation...
Ever since he died last October, King Sisavang Vong has been waiting. His body, suitably embalmed with formaldehyde, crouches in a throne-shaped coffin in the Royal Palace in Luangprabang in the fetal position, for the Buddhist monks say, "As we came into this world, so we shall leave it." The dead King is dressed in his most glittering robes and wears a gem-encrusted conical crown. His gaze is turned toward the wide, murmuring Mekong River where during his long life of 74 years he loved to watch canoe races and fireworks displays, often in the company of some...
Inferior logs of sandalwood have already arrived at Luangprabang, the gifts of rich and poor alike. Each log bears the name and address of the sender, and will be piled on a hilltop in October to serve as a sweet-smelling funeral pyre for the dead King. When the royal tree is at last found, the news will be spread by couriers, bronze drums, temple gongs, buffalo-hide tom-toms and by telegraph...
Died. Sisavang Vong, 74, longtime (1904-59) King of Laos; in Luangprabang (see FOREIGN NEWS...