Segment 6: Boten to Vientiane

As of June 2022, there are two daily trains from Boten to Vientiane. The faster express train C81 departs at 11.55am and takes 3h35m while the slower normal train K11 departs at 4.40pm and takes 5h15m.

As soon as I exited Boten station, I just turned around and checked out the ticket counter.



There was one person ahead of me and while waiting, I studied the board displaying availability.



It seemed that there was availability on the imminent C81. I first tried asking in English but the counter staff couldn't understand me at all. Thankfully he knew Mandarin Chinese and confirmed that there were still seats for sale.

Not wanting to wait five hours in Boten and then arriving late in Vientiane on Train K11, I bought the last second class ticket on C81 for 407,000 LAK (~23.60 USD). There were still four first class tickets available (645,000 LAK or ~37.50 USD) but I couldn't afford it due to my lack of Lao Kip.

Most of the people hanging outside the station were Chinese. Boten town itself had a pretty storied history in the last two decades and was probably worth a real visit next time.



So after a brief 10 minute stay outside of Boten station, I found myself back inside after a quick security check. Boten is a smaller station compared to Vientiane and only has one X-ray machine for domestic departure.



The domestic departure hall was on the south side of the building and smaller than the adjacent international departure hall. I saw some people sitting inside the international departure side but it was unlikely that there was any train to China at the moment.



The train was the same one who brought me from Vientiane but I still discovered something new on the return trip: there were plugs and USB charging points underneath the seats.



The train departed on time and I was the only passenger in car 7 then. It was only at Nateuy where more passengers boarded.



I also used the washroom and it ran out of toilet paper for this return journey.

Crossing Mekong, the mother river of Indochina. Originating from the Tibetan plateau, it flows through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia before emptying into South China Sea in southern Vietnam.



Luang Prabang station was the busiest station, which explained the 8-minute stop in schedule.



While not in tunnels, I would just admire the hills.



The clouds were really low and it felt misty outside.



From Vang Vieng, it would be just another hour to Vientiane.



Passing by a fair bit of agricultural land near Vientiane. Some of the issues facing Lao farmers these days were the lack of fuel to operate machinery and increase in the price of fertilisers. There are legitimate concerns of food shortages when the harvest season comes around.



The train arrived on time at Vientiane station platform two and we had to use the underpass to exit the station. One had to show his/her train ticket in order to exit the station and I spotted some guy attempting to bypass the check by pretending not to notice the railway staff.



As soon as I exited the station, public buses heading to Central Bus Station as well as Friendship Bridge (for Nong Khai, Thailand) were already waiting outside for arriving passengers. It was definitely possible for travellers arriving on C81 to cross the border to make the 7.40pm train to Bangkok from Nong Khai.



Bus 28 was scheduled to depart 15 minutes after the arrival of C81 and my seat mate had sufficient time to grab some late lunch from the vendors outside the station.



The late afternoon traffic was way heavier compared to the morning one. Along the way, the bus made a stop at the Southern Bus Terminal (for buses heading to Southern Laos) as well as at Patuxai. In all, it took one hour to reach downtown Vientiane, twice the time taken in the morning.



I retraced my steps back to my hotel, stopping by for a while at Wat Si Saket. It seemed to be closed already though.





Another picture of Patuxai from afar.



At the end of my 20 minute walk was a Chinese restaurant called Liaoning Dumpling Restaurant. I had been thinking about dinner and thought that while I couldn't enter China earlier, I could have Chinese food instead.


Beerlao was cheaper than Tsingtao though so not everything's Chinese.



One of the disadvantages of knowing Mandarin Chinese was that I could understand the content that the restaurant boss was listening to on his phone. Some monotonous guy was narrating about the biology labs discovered in Ukraine proved that USA created COVID-19 but these fascist Ukrainians and evil Americans would soon be defeated by Putin.





While I didn't quite enjoy the restaurant boss's choice of content, the food was another matter altogether. I was probably quite hungry too and I totally cleaned the fried rice and steamed pork dumplings out. Total damage was a very reasonable 83,000 LAK (~4.80 USD) and I returned to the hotel satisfied.

Distance travelled so far: ~3,391km