This Southeast Asian Country Has a New Railway That Takes Visitors to Scenic Landscapes, Bustling Cities, and Little-Known Destinations

Not long ago, I traveled between the most touristy towns in Laos — the architecturally stunning capital, Vientiane; Wangyong’s spectacular karst landscape; Luang Prabang is full of temples and requires a long drive on winding roads. It can take eight hours to navigate the 200-mile bumpy stretch between Vientiane and Luang Prabang, filled with buses and pickup trucks loaded with live poultry and bags of rice. Of course, some travelers choose to fly to Luang Prabang, but in doing so, miss out on the beautiful mountain countryside.
​There are now better options thanks to the opening of the first cross-border railway in Laos. The 257-mile Boten-Vientiane railway, which opened in December 2021, connects the town of Boten-Vientiane along China’s northern border with Vientiane for the first time and emerging destinations along the way. Trains travel at speeds of up to 99 miles per hour, and transport by road, which before 2020 would have taken at least two days, can now be reduced to four hours. The journey from Vientiane to Luang Prabang can be completed in two hours, station to station.
​”It makes traveling in Laos faster and cheaper,” says Ruben Derksen of Exo Travel, an Asian tour operator. Dirksen notes that the service is also opening up previously hard-to-reach corners of the country. “For example, it used to take five hours to travel from Luang Prabang to the tribal villages around Muang La with an expensive private car and driver.”
​Visitors can now take a short train ride to the gateway city of Mansi in the region before venturing deeper into the countryside. “This will stimulate the local economy,” Dirksen said. “The new tourism development will provide jobs for these relatively poor, remote villages.”
​The new cross-country train was built by a joint venture with China, which aims to connect much of Southeast Asia by rail as part of its massive Belt and Road Initiative. The plan calls for a seamless connection from Kunming in southern China to Singapore, more than 1,600 miles south, via Laos, Thailand, and Malaysia. (Bangkok, for its part, just opened Bang Sue Grand Station, Southeast Asia’s largest train station.)
​Completing this massive project could take decades. Still, it has the potential to enable epic rail journeys from Singapore to Shanghai, Bangkok to Beijing, and even from Lisbon to Singapore via Moscow if geopolitical events are yet to be determined.
​Today, the ride experience in Laos rivals the best high-speed trains in Asia, with air-conditioned carriages, ample legroom, and power outlets between the seats. An online ticketing platform will be launched this year. At the moment, the easiest way to book is through travel consultants such as Exo, who can also recommend trips that take advantage of the new railway.
​​A version of this story first appeared in the October 2022 issue of Travel + Leisure with the headline “Full Boat Trip Southeast Asia.”