If you're wondering why I don't toot any picture of sights, the landscape or just anything not related to trains, please keep in mind that I'm transiting not any country but China - with all its implications.
Everything I'd share here, everything I'd show or advertise here would be a political statement. A statement contradicting my values. While I will just be silent while I'm traveling here, I'm looking forwards to sharing experiences later.
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My journey northbound goes on : Today, I will tackle 2.000 km by Gaosu Dongche high-speed train from 🇨🇳 Kunmingnan Zhao to 🇨🇳 Beijingxi Zhao followed by a 1.500 km Zhida Tekuai leg onboard of the luxury 🇨🇳 Beijing Zhao - 🇨🇳 Qiqihar Zhao train.
The 
Huxing Hao is uncomfortable and shaky as any Chinese-built train but lucky me could still buy a wickedly expensive upgrade to Business Class onboard where at least the seats are comfortable enough to survive an 11 hours trip after with the stress and exhaustion carried over from the past two days.
I'm looking forwards to reaching northern China enjoying the more relaxed atmosphere in Inner Mongolia since I'm not a huge fan of the busy and crowded south and west coast.
I'm taking bets :
According to the 12306, the international ticket counter and a Chinese travel agency I contacted there is no train between 🇨🇳 Manzhouli and 🇷🇺 Irkutsk.
According to the RZhD, Yandex, Russian-spoken newspapers, various photos and videos on the internet, there is the train no. 353ь from 🇨🇳 Manzhouli to 🇷🇺 Irkutsk leaving twice a week.
Am I going to find a train and a ticket in 🇨🇳 Manzhouli in two days ?
Immigration in 🇨🇳 Mohan went smoothly, now waiting for my train to continue its journey through the 🇨🇳 Yunnan province to 🇨🇳 Kunming.
Traveling from 🇹🇭 Bangkok to 🇫🇷 Alsace, day 3 :
I had a relaxed morning, good breakfast and arrived at the immigration checkpoint before the arrival of the passengers from 🇱🇦 Vientianne so that the passport check went smoothly without any queue.
My destination for today is 🇨🇳 Kunming, the city of spring. I'm looking forwards to discover the beautiful sides of the city after @iamejp warmly recommended to to give the city center another try - because so far I had only seen the ugly new development district south of the city on my outbound journey.
The journey by 
D88 train takes about 5h30 even though one hours comes to the border check in 🇨🇳 Mohan.
After the border check in 🇱🇦 Vientianne Khamsavath railway station took 2 hours, I sadly missed my train to 🇨🇳 Kunming - the last one of the day. Without train timetable, internet or language knowledge I decided to at least travel as far as still possible today.
In particular, that means I bought a new ticket for the C82 train ending in somewhere in the Lao mountains close to the border to 🇨🇳 China. To be honest, I don't understand why this train doesn't proceed to 🇨🇳 Kunming : The later of the second train across the border arrives there at 9 p.m. - this one arriving at 10:30 p.m. would be a good addition to the chronically overcrowded trains between the two People's Republics.
Arriving in in the middle of nowhere around 5 p.m. was definitely an experience : Neither do I speak Lao and Mandarin, nor did I have Lao kips to pay or internet. Internet could be arranged after buying a SIM card at a kiosk, but when I tried to buy a connecting train ticket for tomorrow I sadly had to realize how Alipay didn't want to work. All the currency exchanges only did Yuan to Kip, whereas I could not exchange any Thai bath anywhere.
I finally discovered an ATM and could get my train ticket to 🇨🇳 China for tomorrow.
After all, I also found a hotel, got some food and could rebook my remaining journey to match my delay.
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Definitely not on my bucket list for today : I won an overnight stay in 🇱🇦 Boten, the special economic zone right at the border to 🇨🇳 China.
🇱🇦 Laos, or as I call it : Difficult border crossing 🙃.
Not that anything could ever go wrong here but it's slow, chaotic and random. Always plan two hours of buffer. Train arrival at 9 a.m. and connecting train at 11.30 a.m. can end up in a speed run.
Meanwhile an adorable 
type NFK DMU for the Express 76 arrived and suddenly the station was empty.
Good morning Fedi 🌄 !
I had an excellent night and my sleeper arrived in 🇹🇭 Nong Khai on time.
Despite amenities on the train, I was too sleepy and my bed was too cuddly to motivate myself to have a shower before arriving.
The morning arrival of the Special Express 25 in the morning always is a spectacle : All passenger leave and jointly walk to the ticket office, queue up and all request the same, a connecting ticket to 🇱🇦 Vientianne. The queue dissolves quickly, not even 10 minutes after the arrival all passengers were issued their connecting ticket for the Rapid 133.
Why all of this ? I have no clue. The ticket office in Bangkok could also issue the tickets and you can buy them online. Maybe all the Lao people are fond of paper tickets as much as I am 🤓 ? Who knows 🤪. Anyways, I now obtained my connecting ticket and will hopefully also be able to purchase a ticket for my train once arriving in 🇱🇦 Vientianne later.
Now I have two hours in 🇹🇭 Nong Khai waiting for my connecting train. The station is very comfortable, with a minimart, toilets, even showers and some little cafés.
My train was meanwhile shunted over to platform 2 where it's waiting for its departure back to 🇹🇭 Bangkok in the evening.
While there are minibuses and tuck-tucks to 🇱🇦 Vientianne every few minutes which would allow me to take an earlier LCR train to 🇨🇳 Kunming, my inner purism wants me to wait for two hours to actually travel every little bit possible by rail.
At least I will spend the two hours looking for some breakfast !
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Braid in trains 
- solidarity with 