All aboard! High-speed train offers compelling new way to travel through Laos

The romance of train travel is alive and well in Laos. The recently-com­pleted high-speed rail­way that stretches from Vien­tiane, through Laos, and into south­ern China is oper­at­ing ‘full steam’ ahead. 

This excit­ing jour­ney takes you through remote vil­lages and into the heart of rur­al Laos, offer­ing up close and per­son­al views of the Laos of today that you would not nor­mally see on the roads. 

Not only is this train jour­ney an incred­ible visu­al feast, it dra­mat­ic­ally reduces over­land travel times between major towns and provinces. Tra­di­tion­ally, an over­land jour­ney by road between Vien­tiane and Luang Pra­bang would take up to eight hours. The new train jour­ney cuts travel time down to a mere two hours, mak­ing this both more eco­nom­ic­al than the over­land road and even flight options, and a lot more envir­on­ment­ally friendly!

The high-speed train makes stops at small towns and vil­lages that were not eas­ily access­ible by road, open­ing up a whole new world of pos­sib­il­it­ies to dis­cov­er and explore the serene, and what feels like trapped in time, pro­vin­cial Laos. 

One such town is the small quaint vil­lage of Mueang Xai, also known as Oudomxay which is loc­ated north of Luang Pra­bang in the Nam Ko river basin and sur­roun­ded by strik­ing moun­tains. From Mueang Xai you can take a 45km drive to the Chom Ong cave with its thrill­ing and impress­ive pas­sages and tun­nels that take you to a scene adorned with dazzling stalag­mites and stalac­tites, a remind­er of the won­ders of the nat­ur­al world and an exper­i­ence that will stay with you for a lifetime.

Oth­er stops along the line include Phone Hong, the revital­ised Vang Vieng, Mueang Kasi, and Boten which is loc­ated right on the Laos-China border. 

Dis­cov­er­ing the rich mul­ti­cul­tur­al north­ern region of Laos is what travel is all about; savour­ing the loc­al cuisine; admir­ing the tra­di­tion­al fab­rics that are pieces of art in them­selves; and immers­ing your­self in a dif­fer­ent way of liv­ing shared with the warmth and wel­com­ing nature of the beau­ti­ful people of Laos. 

The train itself is all you would expect from mod­ern train travel: Super com­fort­able seat­ing in air con­di­tioned car­riages, yet still embra­cing the romance of rail. 

The high-speed rail­way is a mod­ern form of trans­port­a­tion in a coun­try that is steeped in tra­di­tion­al ways. It’s a fas­cin­at­ing jux­ta­pos­i­tion of mod­ern tech­no­logy with Laos’ eth­nic towns and tri­bal vil­lages. This new way to travel through Laos takes vis­it­ing the coun­try into a whole new era, con­nect­ing the old with the new in an unim­pos­ing, taste­ful, and con­veni­ent manner. 

For more inform­a­tion please con­tact our Laos team on sales.laos@khiri.com
Khiri Laos web page

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Vis­ion: It is our goal that our pas­sion­ately designed travel exper­i­ences – regard­less of travel style and budget – provide unfor­get­table, high-qual­ity exper­i­ences for our trav­el­ers as well as an effort­less, inspir­ing way to con­trib­ute pos­it­ively to the con­ser­va­tion of com­munit­ies and des­tin­a­tions we travel to.

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