The Stonecarvers...

There's a village that specialises in sculpting Buddhas from solid stone just north of Pakse.  The villagers quite literally go into the "stone fields" and find a suitable piece of stone to hew. One person carves the item from start to finish, he is ably assisted by a polisher who keeps a gentle stream of water flowing over the statue so that he can polish it up with a very coarse stone block.  It then has several layers of paint applied before its final gold coating.

Stone carving

Carving a 2 tonne Chinese Buddha on commission

Sanding the Buddha

Painting the carvings

The final product