Bangkok to Thanaleng (Laos)

We boarded our train at 8pm, about 30 minutes after a foot massage which at first made me feel like I'd just undergone major surgery, but by the time I reached our platform had me walking on air and looking forward to my cocoon.

Train from Bangkok to Nong Khai. Obviously.

Our train carried us north through the bulk of Thailand to the border with Laos - a 12-hour journey, according to my ticket; but the minute the train left the station an emissary from the restaurant car told us it would be at least 14, and would we like breakfast at our seats at 8am? Although she'd charge us a little more than we'd pay if we walked down to the restaurant, we both thought it would be worth it, and so it was. At 8am she peeked around the curtain and interrupted my scenery viewing to say she would serve breakfast now. She'd set it up at a couple of spare seats at the end of our carriage, and as we ate, another attendant removed our bedding and turned our beds back into seats. Certainly the most efficient attendants we'd had on the journey so far.

We rolled into Nong Khai nearly 3 hours late, but as it was 3 extra hours of daylight to window-gaze by, the tourists weren't complaining, and I assume the locals were used to it as they were quiet too.

The sleeper train waiting to return to Bangkok

At Nong Khai, we officially left Thailand, the exit stamp filling up the last space of the first passport page to be used up by this trip - the Lao visa would complete the second. From the passport booth we were granted access to the end of the main platform, where a short train waited - just two carriages of simple, suburban train seats and slot-down, wood-framed windows. 

Train to Thanaleng on the left, the sleeper from Bangkok
on the right.

It didn't look much like a grown-up, worldly, border-crossing train at all, but that's what it was. It's a great, big, new train, just three years old, that twice daily makes the 3.5km journey across the Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge over the Mekong River, and back. On this Friday morning it was almost empty - perhaps around 20 passengers, mostly foreign, spread out over the carriages. I sat right behind the driver, giving me a good view of the tracks, which ran down the centre of the empty road.

At the other end of the bridge, about 40 cars and trucks waited behind a guardpost for us to pass. Just a couple of minutes later we pulled into Thanaleng Station - there are plans to extend the line further to Vientiane, the capital city, but for now the tracks we've been travelling for nearly 2,200km end in an unceremonious bit of scrub bush. Which I didn't take a photo of. Yes, I was a little exhausted by the journey, and I thought we'd have another chance later on the return trip. But here's the view looking back to Thailand:

Laos immigration was pretty down to earth - despite lots of forms to complete, and a process which is fast becoming rare these days: hand over your photo, passport, forms and money, plonk yourself down on your bags and get your books out, and when a pile of mixed-up passports are shoved back through a separate window, rush over before someone else with the same nationality as you nicks your little maroon identity. Then you just walk out the station into town, like any other city railway station.

Hah, yeah, right.

No, there was once a railway in Laos, a short section of tracks down in the south used by the French to transport lumber between two rivers, but other than that defunct stretch, these three-and-a-half kilometres from Thailand constitute the only railway in Laos and they're still getting the hang of it. Thanaleng sits in the middle of an expanse of carpark, upon which three minivan taxis await the morning influx of passengers. It took 45 minutes and 400 baht to reach the central market.

From there, there being no more railway to carry us onwards, we boarded a plane for Luang Prabang. Same as my last trip, this was a small turbo-prop plane, and we were barely up in the air before we were descending again.