Visitors impressed

Chen Yali, 29, a tourist from Hunan province in Central China, said she traveled by air to Xishuangbanna in Yunnan in order to take the China-Laos Railway for a three-day Lao trip.

"I teach English and history at a rural school and we talk a lot about the BRI, which makes me very interested in the railway project," said Chen. "The overall travel experience was very simple and the cross-border check was not as difficult as we had imagined."

After completing his trip in Laos, Umberto Disperati, a 30-year-old tourist from Italy, took the China-Laos Railway to start his first trip to China in Yunnan and Sichuan provinces.

"I was intending to travel from Laos to China and after looking on the internet I found out that (the railway) was the easiest way instead of taking flights," said Disperati. "It was easy to navigate the train station. It is huge and the train is quite clean and new."