There has been much talk in the group about todays onward journey on the Laos-China Railway to the city of Kunming. This is a very new rail link and there is little info available on the internet about it. In particular there is little info available about the exact procedure for the boarder crossing. So the whole group started the day with anticipation.

At the railway station we were to board todays version of the train, we caught from Vientiane a few days ago, train number D88. The train consisteded of 8 carriages, each with 20 rows of seats and (I think) all but one row consisting of 5 seats. So each carriage could hold approximately 99 passengers for a total of maybe 800 passengers. And it looked full.

The train travelled at the same speed as our previous ride. Once up to speed clocking 160-167km/h, some slowing for curves, and maybe 8 stops along the entire journey. We boarded just after 10:00am and arrived in Kunming at 18:30 Laos time (17:30 China time) for a total journey time of 7.5 hours. The internet gives various distances for this ride but seems its about 630km. However those 2 numbers do not do justice to the speed of the ride as in the middle of that there were two stops for all 800 passengers to disembark for border processing.

At the Laos town of Boten everyone got off the train with all their luggage and proceeded through security screening and Laos immigration exit processing. This process took the best part of an hour and took place in another brand new train station.

After exit processing it was all back on the train for a 10 minute ride to the Chinese city of Mohan where we all got off again with all luggage for more security and immigration processing this time for entry into China. Again this took the best part of an hour.

With the Mohan processing complete we all sat back and tried to relax while the train consumed kms and the occassional glimpse of the Chineses country side and the occassional city passed by our windows. It is worth noting that while the scenery on this trip is interesting one does not see much of it. The terrain for most of the route is mountainous and a significant portion of the route is in tunnels driven through those mountains. It takes a little reflection to appreciate the enormous effort that was put into building this railway line. It was definitely built to a performance spec not a budget.

I am sure I will have more to say about the city of Kunming over the next few days. But so far it is jaw dropping. We arrived on the southern side of the city to another brand new station with at least 20 separate platforms. It took 10 minutes to walk out of the station to our transport which then took us very wide modern streets amidst a forest of modern tower buildings to a brightly lighted restaurant.

Eventually we arrived at our hotel, a Holiday Inn, and fell into bed.