Laos: The new long distance train journey through the spectacular countryside

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armchairlawyer
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Laos: The new long distance train journey through the spectacular countryside

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Lines of monks with orange robes and begging bowls emerge like the glow of an approaching wildfire in the Mekong’s hazy daybreak. They are collecting alms and are met by Luang Prabang’s faithful, who wait kneeling with palms pressed together and offer the monks cooked sticky rice and dragon fruit.
Curious, I follow one procession back to their wat (temple) where a golden stupa, a commemorative monument, already smoulders in the strengthening sun. A young monk called Somphone wanders over and asks for a cigarette. As I reflect how a pack of B&H might have gone down better than my offering of rice, he produces his iPhone to show me pictures from his recent jolly on the new Laos-China railway. “It used to take all day to reach Vientiane, but now it’s only three hours,” he says. “Lord Buddha has given us wings”.
Well, steel wheels certainly, and whether Buddha is involved or not, it is the Chinese who have bankrolled Laos’s first long-distance railway, which began services in December 2021. There is only one other line in the country, a one-stop local route from Nong Khai in northern Thailand which makes a short border crossing via the Friendship Bridge over the Mekong to Thanaleng, on the outskirts of Vientiane, the Laotian capital. But it’s of little use, with only two services per day.
The new 262-mile route cuts a swathe across Laos from Vientiane northwards to Boten on China’s border (the service then connects to the Chinese rail system in Mohan, over the border, for trains to Yunnan). While China’s generosity shows the spread of its economic influence in the region, the line also promises to open up this unheralded, landlocked Southeast Asian country, which has poor transport infrastructure and receives far fewer visitors than neighbouring Thailand and Vietnam.
There’s no doubt this new railway should be a game changer — not least to the brightest star in its firmament, Luang Prabang, a petite city on the Mekong River that is Laos’s only real tourism hotspot and which, with China’s border remaining closed and Laos only just reopening post-Covid, is quieter than it has been for several decades. It’s a great time to visit.
I’m not suggesting you hightail out of Vientiane on the first available train, however. Having come from Bangkok, with its typically manic traffic, I find the broad boulevards of this backwater capital almost apologetically empty. I rather enjoy the juxtaposition of Laos’s quietly controlling communists and the city’s array of dazzling Buddhist landmarks, such as Pha That Luang’s humongous golden stupa. And at night there are few thing better than finding somewhere along the city’s arcing Mekong waterfront for khao piak sen — the soft noodles in aromatic chicken broth make my tongue tingle with lime and galangal — and a Beerlao, the national beer.
When I arrive at Vientiane’s vast and garish new train station in the morning, I think back to how slow the bus used to be between here and Luang Prabang. Journeys could take anything from 10 to 14 hours, depending on how long the bus waited until every square inch of space was crammed with passengers and chickens, and how many times the driver stopped at roadside shacks for bowls of noodle soup.
I could have flown the route — there are flights to Luang Prabang from Bangkok if you don’t want to bother passing through Vientiane, and visas are a cinch to obtain online. But then I’d have missed the wild, unspoilt simplicity of the countryside, and those colourful everyday encounters with monks offering theological descriptions of the propulsion of trains.
Still, a rail journey that didn’t take all day seemed too good to be true. And it nearly was. There are a few early teething problems on the route, and getting tickets for the four oversubscribed daily departures is especially difficult for foreigners because they cannot be bought online. After queuing, the ticket-seller tells me no seats are available all day. Come back tomorrow. I persist and he finds me a bunk in a soft sleeper cabin costing £22.75, twice the normal price of a seat.
The train itself is a rather Orwellian affair, which sucks away some of the romance. After being marshalled by masked, white-shirted staff around a sterile glass waiting hall the size of Alexandra Palace, passengers are subjected to onboard announcements in Lao and Chinese along the lines of: “If you suspect your neighbour is engaged in antisocial activities please report them to the conductors”. I check and nobody has their feet on the seats opposite, although the mostly Laotian passengers are loudly facetiming the journey — irritating, yes, but I couldn’t report them all, and understand their palpable relief at no longer having to wait for bus drivers to finish their noodles.
The journey transitions smoothly into a captivatingly scenic ride. When the rice paddies are not effervescently emerald they are unplanted brown mud, sometimes harrowed by buffaloes bearing wooden yokes. After Vang Vieng, the first major station in a town once famed among backpackers for its wild river-tubing-based party scene, the train arrows through tunnels hewn beneath denticulated spikes of limestone peaks punching through misty forest, reminding me of Guilin in southern China, so eulogised in Chinese landscape art.
On time, we ease into Luang Prabang station, another Brobdingnagian effort; its massive, steeply pitched roof inspired by the city’s oldest temple, the 16th-century Xieng Thong, where kings were crowned when Laos was known as the “land of a million elephants”. My skin prickles — from the damp heat and the excitement of being back in a city I love. Luang Prabang is so easy on the eye. Hedonistic in the sense that everything you do is pleasurable and classy, whether dining, shopping, or being sensorially wowed by Southeast Asia’s most richly decorated wats.
Laos’s oldest city was a royal and religious stronghold during its halcyon days from the 14th to the 16th century, enriched by Silk Road trade. It acquired a little architectural va-va-voom (and a love of baguettes) after it was added to the protectorate of French Indochina from 1893. Opulent French-built villas line the Mekong, many now converted to boutique hotels, like the Belle Rive, dating from 1920. Here, from opened louvred doors, I watch river barges groaning against the Mekong’s toffee-coloured flow and savour the cooling polished wooden floors under my bare feet.
Set within a salad bowl of tropical forests, the confluence of the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers traps a throttling net of humidity around this heritage centre. It’s a soporific climate that demands slow-paced exploration. After the monks’ alms collection, I am seduced by the heady scents of roasting Arabica beans and baking croissants drifting from the best coffeehouse in town, Saffron (saffroncoffee.com). The fact that it is run as a social enterprise supporting the livelihoods of more than 800 bean growers adds virtue to my lingering for a second cup. “It’s shade-grown so the beans mature slower for a richer flavour,” says the waitress. Even the beans get the rhythm of Luang Prabang.
I allocate one morning wat visit on each of my five days in town. Xieng Thong is the finest: the sim (main shrine hall) is topped by three pitched roofs leapfrogging each other, locally characterised as a mother hen with outstretched wings protecting her brood. But it’s too hot to spend long admiring the exterior, so I slip off my flip-flops for a delicious hour inside the cool, quiet sim, seated on the floor, feasting on the intricate gold stencilling and raucous handpainted murals from the Laotian version of the Ramayana, which depict purgatory and salvation.
After lunch, at a favourite unnamed hole-in-the-wall restaurant where the spring rolls are steamed so the crunch comes from the vegetables inside rather than the case, I head 18 miles upriver to Pak Ou on Mr Phayvanh’s fast boat. I share the journey with a holidaying Thai family who tell me prices in Laos have rarely been lower because of an economic slump during Covid, as trading with China faltered. The blast of air as we speed by forested riverbanks is almost as enjoyable as Pak Ou’s opaquely lit limestone caverns,which house more than 4,000 statues of Buddha dating from the 16th century (entry £2).
Back in Luang Prabang, the remains of the day are spent on cosmopolitan Sisavangvong Road, a few blocks uphill from the Mekong. Cocktail bars offer twists on classics, such as G&T with lemongrass, and with few visitors, it’s easy to get the best tables on restaurant terraces from which to people-watch. My favourite restaurant, Bouang, spicily jazzes up typical Laotian dishes such as larb (tartare-mince salad) and I adore the savouriness of kaipen — green river algae, desiccated to resemble Japanese nori sheets.
By night, the street becomes pedestrianised and a craft market appears, lit by bulbs hanging from gazebos. I grab a mixed fruit smoothie and pick my way through the craft stalls purveying wood carvings, bright ethnic hilltribe fabrics, watercolours and silver jewellery. Pausing at one stall, I buy an elephant statuette for £3. Ms Phoukeomaniseng explains it was fashioned from recycled bombs dropped on her village in the 1970s by the Americans as they intensified the Vietnam War. She says I’m her first buyer that night.
“I hope the train brings farang (foreigners) back soon; we have so little business,” she says. “Did you like the train? I’ve never been on one.” “It’s a beautiful ride,” I tell her, enjoying the cold touch of my souvenir. But with hindsight, I do rather miss those long stops for noodle soup.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/laos ... -2spqspwb7
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