Beijing To Bangkok Train Just A Few Links From Reality

Meanwhile, the new Bangkok-Vientiane route is expected to increase trade between the two Southeast Asia nations and spur international tourism into Laos, which is increasingly opening its one-party Communist country 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.

Thirty second-class seats can be converted into an airconditioned upper bed bunk for $22 each, while a lower bed costs about $25.30.

Currently, a handful of vehicular bridges link the two countries up and down their shared Mekong River border including at the Mekong town of Nong Khai parallel to the Thai-Lao train.

Previously, Thai trains from Bangkok terminated at Nong Khai because only a highway on a Friendship Bridge crossed the Mekong linking Nong Khai and Vientiane.

Thailand and Laos, however, successfully extended the route by about five miles from Nong Khai into Laos, including a new railway bridge parallel to the Friendship Bridge.

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.

When the Bangkok-Vientiane train crosses the Mekong, Lao train drivers take command starting at Nong Khai Station because Thai drivers could face international liability for operating on Lao territory.

Immigration and customs facilities for Thailand and Laos require a passport or border pass be stamped in Nong Khai and Vientiane.

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.

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“This service is beneficial especially for agricultural produce as the freshness of the goods is retained when they reach consumers in China,” Vientiane Logistics Park Co vice president Tee Chee Seng said in 2022.

“Fresh products fetch good prices. Those who benefit from quick transport are consumers and farmers,” Tee said.

The China-Southeast Asia-connecting train also opens amid rising concerns of Chinese dumping of products in regional markets as protectionist barriers are raised in Western markets amid complaints of Chinese industrial“overcapacity.”

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 .

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