I am now two months in to a career break, which has naturally taken me on many buses and metros, not all out of necessity! It is therefore about time I wrote about some of them, and having a day 'at home' is finally an opportunity to do that. So here are some photos and observations from a couple of days in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, in early 2025.
Part 1 Rail
Vientiane has two large, modern railway stations both opened in the last few years. Both are located some distance from the centre of Vientiane. The new Vientiane station is some 10 miles out of the city centre and has rail links to the north (to Luang Prabang in Laos and Mohen, Yunnan Province, China) which have been built/modernised by the Chinese 'Belt & Road' initiative. On-line photos suggest some fancy looking rolling stock is employed by the Chinese.
However I arrived from Udon Thani in to Khamsavath station, a mere five miles from central Vientiane. There are two trains a day through from Bangkok taking many hours, and two more 'short trips' from 'UD'. I travelled on the 16:00 departure, which was formed of a Thai Alsthom-built locomotive and five carriages, a mix of second class with air conditioning and third class without. The second class carriages are former JR-West (Japan) carriages. Whilst ticket checks seemed numerous and excessive, starting with security guards in the UD station, this was probably to get over the language barrier and ensure everyone, such as the three westerners in my carriage, were on the right train. Despite five carriages the loading on the train barely reached double figures: the train staff motioned me and other customers out of their reserved seats in to seats that were not directly in the sun and this was very welcome!
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| The train waiting at UD. |
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| Departure board at UD station. |
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| Second class interior. The seats swivel 180 degrees to face the other way, if desired! |
Border Crossing
Trains from Thailand to Laos cross the border at Nong Khai: domestic passengers can alight the international trains here, and there is also a more frequent service from Udon Thani operated by diesel multiple units. It seems the majority of passengers on our train did indeed alight and as far as I can tell only six passengers were on the train for the border crossing, three westerners and three locals. International passengers also needed to alight and formally exit Thailand: unlike at Bangkok's airports they stamp passports here.
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| After alighting the train and walking towards immigration the train shunts forward to collect its international load. |
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| Immigration is at the chest height windows on the right, no queue is always welcome! |
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| Crossing the Friendship Bridge over the Mekong River, where the rail line and road are one so vehicular traffic is suspended to allow the train to run over. |
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| Mid-1980s vintage Japanese DMU operating local services to the border town of Nong Khai. |
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The new economic order is very much on display in Laos with the majority of rail freight wagons and containers displaying Chinese ownership.
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Arrival at Laos
The new station at Khamsaveth is little more than a year old, but has been built with traditional platforms only a few inches high, so no concept of level access or disability awareness here. It is at Khamsaveth that immigration in to Laos is performed. Despite having an e-visa I still had to complete arrival forms which provide all the same information as in my e-visa application. As an aside, the e-visa costs USD10 more than the visa on arrival (USD 50 vs USD 40) for no obvious benefit. As a further aside, having a printed copy of my Thai Railways e-ticket and Laos e-visa appeared to speed things up! A final aside is that immigration likes crisp US dollar notes for their fee; e-visa is a little easier as you pay on-line. At least with only three westerners on the train immigration was fairly quick: there are six immigration counters in a style that will be familiar to anyone who's ever arrived in to a foreign country, but here they chose to use a small side window, again at stomach/chest height!
Khamsaveth station is massive, and empty. At 7pm there is no foreign exchange, no ATMs and for those so inclined no Laos SIM card retailer. Another poor understanding of the role of an international railway station. There did seem to be about a hundred people waiting post immigration for the retain train to Thailand, which would go overnight to Bangkok. There was one waiting tuk tuk outside (in Udon and Vientiane tuk tuks are used as a regular taxi rather than the tourist traps they are in Bangkok). I suspect I paid twice the 'locals' rate for the ride to my hotel: the other two westerners used a local app to hail a taxi. The dust and fumes on road mean this is probably a preferable option.
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| Walking from the train to immigration |
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| Passengers awaiting the return to Udon Thani and Bangkok |
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| Local SIM card retailers missing the point! |
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| Ticker desks for both the China and Thailand trains. |
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| Bank and the only currency exchange also not particularly useful for tourists, |
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| My ride from Khamsaveth station to the hotel. |
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| These are not motorbike adaptions, they are purpose built. That's a manual gear box level by the driver's left knee! |
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| The road from the station was nominally tarmac'd but seemed to have been cut up very badly to the point where was piles of dirt for vehicles to navigate around, It got better once closer in to the urban area. |
It's sad that demand for the train is so low: there are many cross-border coaches and minibuses operating (see part 2...). The low demand results in Vientiane's Khamsaveth station having very poor facilities for arriving visitors - no bank, money changers or ATMs for example. Cash can help get around other issues, lack of local SIM card, WiFi or taxi rank, for example. I do wonder how long the trains from Udon Thani will operate with such low demand, whether the link can be maintained by just the through trains from Bangkok, or whether the local trains to Nong Khai could be extended.
