Wat Xieng Khuan and Wat Khaek lie pretty much opposite each other, the former about 40 minutes east of Vientiane in Laos, and the latter right outside the Thai city of Nongkai. Both were designed by Luang Pu Bunleua Sulilat, an enigmatic yogi-priest-shaman who self-fashioned a philosophy/belief system out of Hindu and Buddhist mythology, philosophy and iconography. Wat Khaek was built after Luang Pu migrated to Thailand in 1975 after the creation of the Democratic People's Republic of Laos.