At the beginning of the Spring Festival of the Year of Horse, cross-border passenger transport between China and Laos ushered in an explosive growth. This steel silk road across the Tropic of Cancer is becoming a cultural and tourism hot pulse connecting China, Laos and Thailand and radiating Southeast Asia. Data shows that during the Spring Festival Golden Week, the number of inbound and outbound personnel at Mohan Port exceeded 35000, and the number of daily clearance personnel repeatedly reached new highs; The occupancy rate of the cross-border train "Lancang" has remained above 95%, not only is it difficult to find a ticket, but there are also vivid scenes of Chinese and foreign tourists gathering together on the same train.

Behind this trend is the dual drive of visa free dividends and hardcore infrastructure. With the deepening of the visa free policy between China and Laos, the number of Chinese tourists entering Laos has surged by 120% year-on-year. Not only is the Kunming Luang Prabang route popular, but more tourists choose to travel by train to Southeast Asia, extending from Laos to Chiang Mai, Thailand. In order to cope with the peak passenger flow, the railway department, in conjunction with customs and border inspection, has launched a convenient measure of "one place, two inspections" for customs clearance, compressing the clearance time at Mohan Port to less than 20 minutes, truly achieving a travel experience where you can leave at any time.

The continuous warming of the China Laos railway is not only the flow of people, but also the deep integration of cultures. The train shuttles between the tropical rainforests of Yunnan and the millennium old temples of Laos, connecting over a hundred cultural and tourist attractions along the route, such as Xishuangbanna, Vientiane Pagoda Luang, and Luang Prabang. Merchants along the way are keenly seizing business opportunities and launching cross-border tourism packages such as railway+duty-free and railway+intangible cultural heritage, allowing Pu'er tea, rubber products, and tropical fruits to travel in both directions on the golden route. Keywords: interconnection, cross-border passenger transport, China Laos railway

This international corridor is reshaping the regional economic map at a visible speed. It not only makes eating rice noodles in Kunming in the morning and drinking coffee in Vientiane at night a reality, but also enables the construction of a community with a shared future between China and Laos to take root through personnel exchanges and people to people exchanges.Editor/Cheng Liting