Laos, the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia, now has a fast lane to the rest of the region.

For many decades, a 300-kilometer journey from Vientiane, capital city of Laos, to its second largest city of Luang Prabang took over 12 hours. Driving is not easy, as most of the roads, bridges and tunnels are in mountainous areas.

But since the launch of the China-Laos Railway in December 2021, people have been able to book tickets on their smartphones and travel by high-speed train all the way from Vientiane to China's southwestern city of Kunming, a metropolis some 1,035 kilometers away, in less than 10 hours.