Laos banks on new high-speed railway to draw tourists and investment - A special write-up from The Straits Times

The Lane Xang passenger train.- Vientiane Times/ANN

NONG KHAI (THAILAND), Nov 27 (The Straits TImes/ANN): The men arrived in dark jackets, and the women in fine woven silk skirts. They filed into the gleaming railway station under a red sign that said "Vientiane" in Lao and Chinese.

Then they set off. Laotian lawmakers took a test ride on their country's first railway network to the karst-ringed tourist town of Vang Vieng. What would have been a four-hour road trip from the capital took under one hour on Nov 17 on the Lane Xang, a bullet train named after an ancient Laotian kingdom.