That Dam sits on a quiet roundabout near the centre of Vientiane. Legend has it that this stupa was once coated in a layer of gold. The gold is said to have been carted off by the Siamese during their pillaging of 1828, after which the stupa took the ‘black’ sobriquet in memory of the dastardly act.
However, another myth is slightly at odds with this and says That Dam is the abode of a dormant seven-headed dragon that came to life during the 1828 Siamese–Lao war and protected local citizens, although apparently not the stupa’s gold…