The orange-robed Laotian monks had been waiting for the train for two centuries. So, when he showed up in Luang Prabang, at 160 kilometers per hour and with Chinese characters, he was forgiven for not being another illusion.
A couple of years have passed and the shock of progress with Chinese characteristics has been well received in Laos. A lethargic and low-profile country that serves as a buffer between powerful neighbors. Tickets from this balmy, Frenchified old capital of Luang Prabang and dreamy Vientiane go on sale three days in advance and sell out in a matter of hours. And that, technically, is a high-performance line rather than a high-speed one.
Like so many things in the history of Laos, starting with its improbable existence, the China-Laos Railway seems to have fallen from the sky. Like today paragliding and hot air balloons over the cotton mountains of Vang Vieng, line below. Or, like yesterday, the B52s, with orders to unload on the fields of Laos the bombs that they had not had time to drop on Vietnam, before returning to Thailand.
The train has reduced to one hour a journey that previously took four or five on curvy roads. Less savings - then even vacant seats - are observed on the journey between the panoramic Vang Vieng - in perpetual conversion since it was a party mecca for backpackers with the bad habit of drowning and now of adventure sports - and Vientiane, where it competes with the highway and cheap bus tickets.
In the opposite direction, to the north, the line links with the railway network of the Chinese province of Yunnan on the other side of Boten. A Laotian municipality that emerged from nowhere speaking Chinese in the heat of casinos for Chinese - and returned to obscurity - due to Xi Jinping's anti-corruption crusade - before resurrecting again with the train.
Quite a miracle for a people, the Laotian, for whom the railway was almost a dream (French colonization exploited a stretch of just seven kilometers in the south for a few years to save some Mekong waterfalls).
But Laotians have no illusions. They know that their country is not the jackpot for China. They are just the weak link - or at least easy - in a much more ambitious project - and long before the New Silk Roads - to connect the Chinese province of Yunnan with all the capitals of Indochina, up to Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, to through three branches that will converge in Bangkok. The one that crosses Laos is the central one, but there will be another through Vietnam and Cambodia (advanced) and another through Burma (backward).
From what has been seen in Laos, it can be deduced that the train stations that China leaves are panopticon like a prison. Everything is in sight. There are no fountains, but there are machines that dispense free boiling water - neither cold nor lukewarm - designed for instant noodles or tea. Shops offer Chinese delicacies, such as chicken legs, in tough competition with the excellent Laotian snacks of yam, sweet potato or rice. After all, half of the passengers are smiling and noisy Chinese tourists. The beer, yes, had to be Lao.
Laos, Indochina's poor neighbor - along with Cambodia and Burma - now has trains that are the envy of Thailand, where there are none remotely as modern or as fast (in fact, trains with seats, floors, walls and roofs still run). of wood). A slap in the face to the Thai government - now again with a civilian at the helm - finally decided to complete the section to Bangkok in just over five years, after much consideration of its equidistance between the United States and China. Singapore shows off its disinterest, but it matters little if Malaysia - highly interested - takes the line to its very doors.
On paper, Beijing has assumed 70% of the investment and Vientiane must take charge of the remaining 30%. A gift, reality, for the Lao People's Revolutionary Party, the only party, which has not buried its name or its symbols - unlike what happened in Cambodia - but cannot be said to show them either. There are few flags with the hammer and sickle, the party's symbol, and even fewer revolutionary monuments. Laos seems to be the least communist of the communist countries. With the permission of China, of course, a country bordering all of them - not by chance - except Cuba.
A Laotian travel agent, who prefers not to give his name, comments on the large number of Chinese investors who are acquiring land in Laos - something theoretically prohibited to foreigners - through straw men. Although it was further east where Agent Orange wreaked havoc, the state of the forests and fields is very bleak during the journey. It seems that the "red agent" did not prove to be particularly fertile.
In Vientiane there was no money to build anything nice, but there was money to tear down most of what was colonial and old (perhaps because it was often Vietnamese or Chinese, Laotians being a minority in this and other cities). In the real Luang Prabang, on the other hand, there was no money for anything and that saved her. That and its designation as a World Heritage City by UNESCO.
Before the Thais talked about "reed diplomacy," the Laotians already knew how to bend, without breaking, to their neighbors. They are aware that China is an unstoppable colossus, something that, given the difference in scale, does not cause excessive resentment. China is the first trading partner, although Vietnamese and Thai investors are also very active, followed by Malaysians. While the West maintains part of its influence through a multitude of NGOs - in the shadow of international organizations - in one of the countries with the highest humanitarian investment per capita (which is accompanied, in Vientiane, with an attractive fleet of 4x4 vehicles ).
It has been 5.3 billion euros for the Laotian stretch of the thousand-long kilometers between Kunming and Vientiane. This is, in addition, one of the most vulnerable capitals in the world, with the only airport where you enter foreign airspace a few seconds after taking off.
In any case, the cultural affinity - not without a point of suspicion - is with Thailand, whose audiovisual production is avidly consumed in Laos in its original version. Not in vain, Laotian and Standard Thai are languages as close as Spanish and Portuguese. And, in fact, in Laos and northeastern Thailand (Isan) practically the same language is spoken, which is where the joke comes from that Laos is uninhabited because the majority of Laotians live in Thailand (except for the descendants of tens of thousands of Hmong - 40% of Laotians are Montagnards with another mother tongue - who were US mercenaries during the "secret war" parallel to the Vietnam War and rebuilt their lives on the other side of the Pacific.
The affinity is with Thailand, a land of job opportunities that nevertheless looks down on them - for their relative backwardness and supposed slowness - as it does with many of its own citizens. But this tremendous closeness to the Siamese is in turn the greatest threat to the independence and integrity of Laos, with territorial losses - supported at the time by imperial Japan - that were only remedied after the Second World War.
For all these reasons, for the Laotian government, the great political ally is Vietnam, the other turbo-capitalist neighbor with a communist party at the wheel. “Vietnam protected us,” says a taxi driver who, like in all single-party countries, did not get his license by chance.
In humble Laos, the train today runs faster than in any other country in Southeast Asia, with the exception of Indonesia, where China exported its first high-speed train last year, between Jakarta and Bandung. The China-Laos Railway is clean, functional, punctual and relatively comfortable. And although it unites two communist countries, there are classes. Second and third.
Laos seeks a balance between Chinese economic influence, the politics of Vietnam and the cultural and social influence of Thailand, a natural outlet for its emigration. On the Thai side - what in Bangkok they call, out of political correctness, Isan - the Lao speakers are several times those of Laos. And many Laotians can even read Thai (the alphabets are different, although they are related).
Laos is as big as half of Spain, for seven and a half million inhabitants, with little purchasing power. An insignificant market for China, unlike those that the connection with Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore will open. In the not too distant future, you will be able to travel by train from Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou, via Kunming, to Kuala Lumpur, via Vientiane and Bangkok. Malaysia is in a greater hurry than Thailand, which nevertheless checks every morning the temperature, the degree of pollution and which way the wind is blowing.
