Train trip Jing Hong – Luang Prabang
One of the important reasons for choosing my travel route was the Jing Hong to Luang Prabang train. I have always been a train enthusiast, and I have for example done the trans-Siberian trip Moscow-Beijing three times and once to the other direction. Also, I have travelled a lot by train in China and what little there is to travel in Thailand.
The train left Jing Hong at 10.02 and I got to the station around 8.30 as it takes time to get to the station building. The procedure is very similar to airports, they check your passport, which in China is your ticket as well, you go through the x-ray and body check before you are in the the waiting area. Then they check your passport (ticket) one more time when you get on the train. The train left on time, and it was a comfortable bullet train, although it never reached the speeds they can reach in China. The fastest bullet train I’ve travelled on had a high speed of over 300 km/h.
The train trip itself was actually quite boring. Mostly the train travelled in tunnels so you could not enjoy much of the scenery on the way. Finns don’t need a visa to Laos at the moment, you get 15 days visa free but obviously not many Finns had done this trip as I was asked three times, where is your visa. Once on the train, then on the Chinese immigration and third time on the Laotian immigration. Every time I had to explain that people from Finland don’t need a visa at the moment and after some checking, they luckily believed me. The whole trip took about five hours, two of which were spent crossing the borders, one in each. Then when the Mekong -river came to sight, I knew, I was near to my destination.
I arrived at the Luang Prabang train station at around 12.15 p.m. and as soon as I walked down from the platforms, I was accosted by tuk-tuk and taxi drivers. I finally took a songthaew and paid 5 USD for the trip. In the beginning, I thought, it was too much but actually it was quite a long trip to down town and I was the only passenger, plus the driver took me directly to my hotel.
It didn’t take a long time before I felt, I had gone back more than 30 years in time. It was just like in my early days there in the late 80’s, early 90’s. Bumby and dusty roads at the back of the songthaew. When we eventually arrived at the hotel, I was able to get some local money, Kip. I paid for my room, which was a nice room in a traditional building and right in the middle of the town. The sense of going back in time continued the whole trip. I had to wait for an hour before I got my room so I went to a nearby restaurant and had a beer. I sat there watching the world go buy and the sense of old times grew stronger all the time.
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