With the implementation of a Mekong River railroad bridge and songs in Thailand and Laos next month, making cross-border road transportation with Laos for the first time and with only a few kilometers left as the final unmanned distance to reach China, the train journey from Bangkok to Beijing has one clickity-clack website closer.
With the Thai-Lao railway’s new beginning, a 12-hour-long coach journey now runs from Bangkok’s major Krung Thep Aphiwat Station to Khamsavath Station in Vientiane, the capital of Laos.
Vientiane’s small Khamsavath Station, about six miles ( 9.6 kilometers ) outside of the capital, is the final stop for the new Thai-Lao railway’s carriages.
Before that final rail link is constructed, passengers and cargo arriving by train from Bangkok must travel a few dozen miles through Vientiane’s streets using taxis, vans, and other vehicles to get there via Bangkok Station.
According to some officials, those final tracks might be laid by 2028.
The much larger Vientiane Railway Station, about 10 miles ( 16 kilometers ) northeast of the Lao capital, is a glistening, cavernous, peak-roofed Chinese-built facility offering high-speed Chinese trains linking Vientiane and southern China.
Meanwhile, the new Bangkok-Vientiane route is anticipated to boost trade between the two Southeast Asian countries and encourage international travel to Laos, which is increasingly opening its one-party Communist nation to foreign visitors.
The cheapest one-way tickets from Bangkok to Vientiane are 152 third-class seats, each available for US$ 7.80 and cooled by ceiling-mounted electric fans. Sixty-four airconditioned second-class seats are$ 16 each.
For about$ 22.30, a lower bed can be converted to an air-conditioned upper bed bunk for 30 second-class seats, while a lower bed is about$ 25.30.
A few vehicular bridges run parallel to the Thai-Lao train currently connecting the two nations along their shared Mekong River border, including at Nong Khai, near the Mekong town of Nong Khai.
Because a Friendship Bridge highway’s highway straddled the Mekong, which used to connect Nong Khai and Vientiane, Thai trains from Bangkok used to stop at Nong Khai.
However, Thailand and Laos successfully extended the route, including a new railway bridge parallel to the Friendship Bridge, by about five miles from Nong Khai to Laos.
The government-run State Railway of Thailand ( SRT ) said it was advising Lao National Railway State Enterprise officials about scheduling and station management, ticket sales, train driving and other operations.
Lao train drivers take control of the Bangkok-Vientiane train starting at Nong Khai Station because Thai drivers could face international sanctions for operating in Lao territory.
In Nong Khai and Vientiane, passports or border passes must be stamped in order to enter the customs and immigration offices for Thailand and Laos.
To travel across Laos into China, a multi-billion dollar Chinese-built train, operating since 2021, passes from Vientiane Station through the northern stations of Vang Vieng, Luang Prabang, Muang Xay, and Luang Namtha before crossing into China’s Boten Station in southern Yunnan province near Xishuangbanna.
Those Chinese trains are operated by the Laos–China Railway Co, as part of Beijing’s financial and strategic Belt and Road Initiative. From Boten, onward trains link to all Chinese rail destinations including Kunming, Beijing, Shanghai and Tibet.
The sleek Vientiane-Boten trains cut across northern Laos through 75 tunnels dodging rugged karst hills, small waterfalls, and unexploded bombs unrecovered from the US war in Laos during the 1960s and 1970s.
According to Vice President Tee Chee Seng of Vientiane Logistics Park Co,” This service is advantageous especially for agricultural produce because the freshness of the goods is retained when they reach consumers in China.”
” Fresh products fetch good prices. Consumers and farmers are the ones who profit from quick transportation, according to Tee.
In response to rising concerns about Chinese dumping of goods in regional markets and protectionist barriers raised in Western markets as a result of complaints about Chinese industrial “overcapacity,” the China-Southeast Asia-connecting train also opens.
Richard S Ehrlich is a Bangkok-based American foreign correspondent reporting from Asia since 1978, and winner of Columbia University’s Foreign Correspondents ‘ Award. Excerpts from his two new nonfiction books,” Rituals. Killers. Wars. &, Sex. — Tibet, India, Nepal, Laos, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka &, New York” and” Apocalyptic Tribes, Smugglers &, Freaks” are available here.