Bangkok's new central station, Krung Thep Aphiwat.

The golden building on the left is Lao's immigration checkpoint.



Cina punya macam airport.

Mohan, a small town. Took a local bus to the train station.

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Returned to the pasar malam place... note the electric outlets for each stall.

5am walk to train station






Arrived Yuxi station...

Connect to Hekou at the same Yuxi station, awaiting an hour.
Another high speed train, up to 163kmh. This time it's China Railway, while previously it was LCR (Laos-China Railway).
This sector has lots of tunnels as it goes through a mountainous region... outside temperature around 24°c.

(The other side is Vietnam.)

The long walk from station and through Hekou town ends at this humongous building. It is the immigration and custom checkpoint and for pedestrians only. Exiting to Lao Cai, Vietnam.

Because of some wrong choice of English words used, 'departure lobby', and 'passenger' at the ground floor, it's not apparent that it's an immigration checkpoint.

After you entered the building, there's an arrow pointing to an escalator at the left side. Following the arrow and going up to the 1st floor, you will see a big hall with a long range of immigration counters as in an airport.

Exiting China immigration building and onto the friendship bridge...










Entrance and exit of Vietnam's immigration and customs checkpoint...









(My hotel at Lao Cai... have walk to a short distance to another bridge and crossing it into the town center. 250,000 dong or RM40.)

(Do read up on Fansipan Mountain. Inside SunPlaza, there're funicular train and cable cars to the mountain top. Obviously, I skipped Fansipan Mountain and many, many other popular tourist spots in this shoestring budget trip.)

There's 2 daily train to Hanoi, at 12.05 and 9pm. Arriving at about 8pm and 5am. Vietnam trains are often fully booked, and difficult to purchase at the last minute. Maybe due to the sleeper cabins - less seats in comparison to Thailand's trains. In Thailand, they would sell 'standee' tickets, that is ticket without seat number.

The ticket I paid (250,000 dong/RM40) is among the cheapest sleeper, lower bunk, as in the photo with empty table.

(95 million dong)

- took a van to Tay Son (a small town) and then a car (taxi) to the border.

(Why Vinh? Because it is close to the border checkpoint and this Vietnam-Laos border crossing, among other crossings, is the nearest border crossing to Vientiane.)

The last photo, looking back at immigration building. Long queue of lorries before both borders and in-between the borders. There's nothing at this crossing except for 2 roadside restaurants/wooden cafeterias. Had to pau a private car (taxi) to get to Lak Sao, about 20-25 minutes drive.