Laos' only railway: 14 km of rust
All images from Richard S. Ehrlich
Skeletal railroad tracks and a grim-looking locomotive are some of the rusted remnants abandoned in southern Laos. They sit decaying after French colonialists built a bridge and train to avoid the Mekong River's biggest waterfalls, and exploit Indochina.
Today, this rugged region is known as Si Phan Don, "the 4,000 Islands," and allows travelers to explore the Mekong River by boat, discover the inhabited isles among Buddhist temples and cross the nearby Lao-Cambodian border.
Visitors can also imagine how Southeast Asia's history would be vastly different if Paris continued to open up the 4,900-kilometer Mekong, which flows from Tibet to Vietnam's South China Sea coast.
World War II ended all that.
Source: http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/escape/laos-4000-islands-513336
Jessica Cauffiel Jessica Paré Jessica Simpson Jessica White Jill Arrington

