the new fast train from Vientiane, Laos goes to Kunming in China. It is incredibly difficult to get tickets (Lao inefficiency with China’s communist paranoid super control mentalities mixed). The result is long lines in the city to buy tickets and the only pay methods accepted are Lao resident bank account payments (no tourists can get a bank account in Laos) and a Chinese credit card. Any tourists/non-residents have to hope there is a fellow standing by the window to accept cash and then use his local Lao bank account to transfer the money to the train company. All of this is done while people stand in a long line waiting to buy tickets. Some people are taking 15 to 20 minutes to buy tickets for various reasons. Then when you get to the train station you have to show your ticket and your ID to get inside the building to wait for the train. Then when they call the train you have to stand in a line to wait to get onto the platform. Once you’re on the platform you have to stand in line at the correct train car to wait for the doors to open to board the train. It seems to me like control freak obsessive compulsive disorder – China Communist Party! This is what Lao gets for letting China pay for the train.
