Muong Luan Tower

Muong Luan Tower is an artistic architectural work with the value of visiting and researching, located in Muong Luan Village, Muong Luan Commune, Dien Bien Dong District, Dien Bien Province. From Dien Bien Phu City, follow Highway 279 to the South, turn left at Pom Lot junction to Na Sang, cross Keo Lom slope (wind valley), pass through Lu stream and go straight to Muong Luan Village about 90 km then reach the destination.

(Source photo: internet)

Muong Luan Tower was built at the beginning of the villague at the foot of Hua Ta mountain (riverhead mountain). The architectural Tower is square, big bottom and smaller top, the base of the Tower is 1 m high, each side is 5.50 m, there is no decorative pattern around, plastered with a layer of mortar from the bottom up to form a stylized lotus, with the 6 layers overlapping the whole Tower. The entire Muong Luan Tower is 15 m high decorated in two parts. The body of the Tower from the base upwards has many smooth and overlapped shoulder round pedestals combined with the engraved and embossed pattern lines represented by the stylized shapes of birds, flowers and foliage arranged harmoniously. In the first part, the most prominent is a floating dragon shape running around the body of the Tower, forming a double eight. The four sides of the Tower all show five pairs of dragons, giving the Tower a superficial look which is both solid and strong.

(Source photo: internet)

The second part of the Tower consists of two floors and the top of the Tower. The sides of each floor are not decorated patterns but plastered with mortar, lime and molasses. Each part is bulging in the middle, the ends are tapered to resemble a canola. In the middle of the contiguous part of each floor is decorated with patterns and vignettes prefabricated by terra-cotta such as bird heads, lotus petals, Bodhi leaves, pointed leaves and suns. Decorative vignettes are connected together to form a harmonius decoration project with close layout. Inside the lotus petals and lances, there are attached small mirrors. Particularly, the sun shapes attached in the middle of the four sides of the Tower are also attached by mirrors so that the Tower exposes to light in all four directions every time the sun shines on the Tower. The middle of second floor and the top of the Tower is also decorated like the first and second floors, but the difference is only to shrink to create a gentle and soft beauty. The terra-cotta colors of decorative vignettes are magenta, mixed with white gray, brown gray and dark gray, makin the Tower more ancient and prominent on the dark blue backgraound of the Northwestern mountains.

(Source photo: internet)

Muong Luan Tower is like a charming and gentle girl standing quietly and watching herself on the azure Ma river … This is an artistic architectural work symbolizing the solidarity of the ethnic groups, especially the Tower construction also represents Vietnam – Laos friendship which has been the very fast attachment for a long time.

(Source photo: internet)

Dienbien.gov.vn