5th January: Xishuangbanna, China to Luang Prabang, Laos

We sped out of eastern Jinghong listening to our DiDi driver’s selection of pre-dawn club music. This whole area appears to have been designed in a hurry with the development on two distinct height levels connected by random absurdly steep off-kilter concrete ramps. In the darkness, breakfast sellers lined the dirty streets. Jinghong is the epitome of the rapidly developing areas of China, with an absurdist combination of grimy street life and futuristic glitz. These days, the major cities, or at least their centres, have moved well past this to levels of development rarely seen elsewhere. It was an interesting final view of how China isn’t done building yet.

There are currently only two southbound cross-border trains per day on the Laos-China Railway. We weren’t able to book tickets independently as we’d done for the rest of the trip, so paid an agent to get us on the late-morning train. They failed but we were on the surprisingly half empty early morning departure from Xishuangbanna station. As we neared the Laos border, the scenery was spectacular. The early morning cloud sat in the valleys and allowed us spectacular glimpses of the steep forested hillsides.

The border procedure meant getting off the train twice for 90 minutes each time, once to leave China and again to enter Laos. I guess one day the aim will be to have this all done at departure or arrival, as with Hong Kong trains or the Eurostar. For now, it’s a bit of a faff, but we were just glad it was an option and that we were lucky enough to be on it. We got through quite quickly each time, although on the Laos side the border guard came running after us after letting us through and took our passports back! We weren’t too sure what was going on at first, but it turned out that he’d accidentally given us a shorter period in the country and was correcting it. Phew!

One cool touch was that on the inside of the long tunnel across the border, the colours of the two countries were illuminated. At what was presumably the border, the two flags were lit up on the walls. The line seems to only have a maximum operating speed of 160kmh, much less than most high-speed lines in China. It’s also just one track on a lot of the route, meaning we stopped for a while to allow an oncoming train to pass on a couple of occasions. Given the planned extension southwards and the freight visibly using the line, I wonder if it already needs upgrading. Usually, China future-proofs infrastructure by over engineering so this was surprising.

We settled down with some snacks for the final hour and a half into Luang Prabang. Delving into our snack stores, I tried a rose cake from Dali which was a bit too fragrant for my liking! The nut and sugar snaps we got yesterday though were delicious with just enough crispiness and a tiny burnt edge to the sweet caramel.

Arriving in Laos was actually a lot calmer than we expected. I was able to get a cheap SIM card at the border station, which worked straight away. Getting into town was straightforward too in a shared minivan for less than £1.50 each. This seemed to be a well-run ticketed process with no room to be ripped off. The drive on the other hand was an experience! Wild overtaking on potholed roads. Like the Caucasus moved to the tropics! Still, we were conveniently dropped off right outside of our hotel.

There are a lot of Western tourists here. Wandering through town, I felt discombobulated at the sudden feeling of not standing out. It’s strange having a reverse culture shock but also having to simultaneously adapt to new customs.

There are so many good-looking food options here, with cuisine from seemingly every corner of the globe (what an odd saying – spheres don’t have corners!). Wandering down a back alley, we spotted a self-styled Asian fusion place and decided to treat ourselves. It was incredible. The mango salad was perfectly fresh, with both green and sweet mangoes, pickles, herbs and crispy rice. The dragon fruit pancakes with cashew cream cheese and mustard dill sauce had just the right amount of tang. Even the concertinaed fried potatoes with (fruit) sauce were spectacular. I had a local Lao beer to wash it all down, whilst Kaja had a lovely charcoal lemonade. Perfectly balanced food and not a Sichuan pepper in sight!

In the late afternoon sun, we ambled past temples and down to the river. The Mekong. It was spectacular and it felt wild to be here. I really can’t get my head around it! Half an hour before sunset, we sat down above the riverbank with two full to the brim coconuts. We drank these as the orange orb sank over the hills, reflecting in the river.

Still a bit peckish, we walked through the night market and tried some fluffy coconut pancakes and then some delicious spring rolls. Again, they had amazingly fresh balanced flavours. Such a treat after China!