Boten bordertown blues

New Phnom Penh International Airport hits 30% milestone, Sulawesi railway update, Cebu monorail update, new Bangkok governor vows to fix Green Line mess, and more

Greetings from Vientiane. I have returned to the capital after completing the round-trip journey by train from Vientiane to Boten. My original plan was to stay at all of the places with an express stop. I stayed in Luang Prabang, Muang Xai, and Vang Vieng. I turned up with my bags at Boten, only to find out that the city-under-construction is sealed off and requires a covid test to enter. There was also the added chaos of hundreds of trucks queued up to enter China. I can understand why truck drivers get mad about queue jumpers. I saw enough of Boten that day to decide not to stay.

[Photo via @nomadicnotes.]

I will do a blog post at Nomadic Notes about my day at Boten. When I visit a place in Southeast Asia, I post travel notes on Nomadic Notes, and the infrastructure stuff goes here at Future Southeast Asia. For the Laos-China Railway, I will be doing reviews on both sites, so if you are interested you can subscribe to Nomadic Notes here.

I will go back to Boten when the border has fully reopened without covid testing. A trip I want to do is to travel by train from Vientiane to Kunming, and then by train from Kunming to Hanoi.

This week’s article is a fact sheet about the history of Boten as a casino border town, and its plan to become a city of 300,000 people.

Latest Posts At Future Southeast Asia

Future Boten – The gateway city on the Laos-China border

News

• China unseats Japan as 'important partner' to top ASEAN poll

🇰🇭 Cambodia

• New Phnom Penh International Airport hits 30% milestone

[Updated: New Phnom Penh Airport]

• The old Kep is dead. Long live new Kep?

🇮🇩 Indonesia

• Jakarta plans to expand odd-even policy as traffic gets heavier

• 2023 infrastructure spending over Rp417tn as new capital city project starts

[Updated: Nusantara – New Capital City of Indonesia]

• Minister reviews Makassar-Parepare railway project

[Updated: Trans-Sulawesi Railway]

🇱🇦 Laos

• Laos looks to unlock potential of regional connectivity

• Laos-China Railway opens new station in Oudomxay Province

🇲🇾 Malaysia

• Lee: Three locations identified for proposed Transit Oriented Development

[Updated: Autonomous Rail Transit (ART) Kuching]

• Premier: Belawai can be like Hawaii

“Belawai, with its beautiful beaches, has the potential to be known as the ‘Hawaii of Sarawak’ as the state government is ready to provide the infrastructure for the development of projects such as waterfront parks and other tourist facilities here.”

• Ekovest confirms talks of potential takeover of RTS Link project

🇲🇲 Myanmar

• First batch of goods shipped by the new China-Myanmar joint railway and road transport line to arrive in first week of June

🇵🇭 Philippines

• With transition to Marcos gov’t, DOTr gives rundown of railway projects status

• Quezon City-Bulacan train service to start partial ops by December 2022

• San Miguel Corporation starts construction of MRT-7 depot

• Traffic summit to tackle monorail, subway for Cebu

[Updated: Cebu Monorail]

• With no contractors from China, Mindanao Railway Project hits the brakes

[Updated: Mindanao Railway]

• Baguio creates team to focus on urban transport masterplan  

🇸🇬 Singapore

• Construction starts on Shaw Tower revamp in Singapore

• How robots are becoming Singapore's newest construction workers and librarians

🇹🇭 Thailand

• Governor vows to fix Green Line mess

• Bidding opens for west half of Bangkok’s $6bn Orange Line

• MRTA hires construction consultants for south Purple Line

🇻🇳 Vietnam

• Hanoi's second metro line, 13 years on

• More than three million passengers have travelled the Hanoi Metro

• Long-drawn urban planning issues blamed for Hanoi flooding

• HCM City to remove slums along canals

• Construction sand shortage a headache for contractors in Vietnam's Mekong Delta region