The Future
Now, over 30 years after the bombing stopped, the Viengxay Caves Visitor Centre, the LNTA and development partners are working to ensure the research and conservation needed to protect this national historic site.
How can you help to support a sustainable future for the people and heritage of Viengxay?
Take a tour of the caves - your tour fee pays for guide training and conservation of the artefacts and caves.
Stay in Viengxay for a few days - supporting local families who are providing accommodation and food and drinks, along with a warm welcome.
Buy local handicrafts and textiles and support traditional craftsmanship.
Become part of Viengxay's future!
Collections of Artefacts in Viengxay
The Viengxay Caves Visitor Centre management is responsible for the preservation of a number of collections of moveable cultural heritage. These collections contain a rich variety of objects important to Viengxay as the Birthplace of the Lao PDR. These include objects from aligned nations such as Vietnam, China and the USSR.
People used these objects while sheltering in the caves between 1964 and 1973. After the peace treaty in 1973 many of these objects were transferred to the homes of the leaders and to other government buildings near the caves.
Good conservation practice aims to provide safe conditions for display and storage for all objects within a collection. Some objects are now displayed in the caves to show what life would have been like for the people who lived in them. However as caves are difficult environments to display objects in, most of the collection is kept in a more suitable environment. This helps to protect the objects from damage that may be caused by mould and pests.
Heritage Protection
The Viengxay Caves Visitor Centre management is also responsible for protecting and managing the many caves, gardens and buildings of heritage significance in and around Viengxay.
Viengxay was proclaimed a place of national heritage significance in 1996. Planning controls protect the sites of heritage significance and the stunning natural landscape.
The staff face many challenges as they work to protect the heritage significance of the sites. The caves were largely abandoned after 1975 and most were stripped of their interior structures. The sites of many of the more remote caves are not even recorded. The restoration of some caves, as well as the preservation of the buildings constructed outside the caves after the cessation of bombing, remains a long-term project of the Memorial Sites Committee.
The Committee is also developing a research programme to document the area and an interpretation strategy that will provide a rich experience for local and international tourists who visit Viengxay.
