Tourist train service from Beijing to Vientiane begins

First international passenger train on the China-Laos Railway
from Kunming in Yunnan Province to Vientiane in Laos, CFP

The China-Laos Railway on Monday started a cross-border tourist train service from the Chinese capital Beijing to Lao capital Vientiane.

In the early morning at 2:02 a.m., the train departed from Beijing Fengtai Railway Station and will travel along the Beijing-Guangzhou and Shanghai-Kunming train lines via Libo, Anshun in Guizhou Province then arrive at Kunming, Yunnan Province.

Then the train will keep going along China-Laos railway to Lao capital Vientiane, with several stops including Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng. The return trip will pass by China's attractions such as Xishuangbanna in Yunnan Province and Chibi city in Hubei Province. The round trip takes 15 days.

The 1,035-km China-Laos Railway, a landmark project of the Belt and Road Initiative, began operations in December 2021. It was the first directly connected international railway mainly invested by China under the Belt and Road Initiative.

The rail link which connects China's Kunming with Vientiane in Laos has transported 9.62 million tonnes of cargo in the first half of 2023 alone, up 94.7 percent year on year, with cross-border cargo volume more than tripling at 2.3 million tonnes, China News reported. The main categories of goods carried on the railway were fruit, potato flour, barley, rubber, beer, iron ore, concentrated iron ore and chemical fertilizer.

Since it began operation, the China-Laos Railway has carried over 3 million passengers. In 2023, it carried 1,759,900 passengers in a period of just over eight months.

Read more: China-Laos Railway records 25,000 cross-border passenger trips
* Mekong Tourism Coordinating Office