Quite an adventure, I always assumed getting between SEA and the Middle East to be difficult, particularly Myanmar<->India but looking at the map the gaps are quite small and it seems like a better way, especially these days.
I did the long way round via Cambodia/Vietnam rather than through Thailand/Sichuan province, the map says there is a train now between Hanoi and Nanning but when I went it was 10+ hours on a bus including a lengthy golf buggy ride between no-mans-land with a 18yo kid armed with an AK at the Chinese border.
The bus trip between Phnom Penh and HCMC was utterly terrifying, we spent a quarter of the trip on the wrong side of the road with the driver holding down the horn to make oncoming traffic move out of the way, bigger vehicle and all that. There was an American couple trying to pay the driver to slow down but that just made him more angry. Really makes you appreciate a good sleeper train or plane.
Myanmar<->India is a bit tricky. When I passed through, you needed a permit to go to that part of Myanmar and to cross the border. Not long before, the border had been closed, and I think it was closed again more recently due to the situation in Myanmar. Not sure of the current border situation.
The people doing the permit in Yangon were quite serious about it, but the actual border was incredibly laid back. I walked across after stamping out of Myanmar in Tamu, and the buildings on the India side of the border were all closed for the weekend, so I kept walking to Moreh and found a policeman, who went and found the immigration guy at home so that I could get stamped in.
I did the long way round via Cambodia/Vietnam rather than through Thailand/Sichuan province, the map says there is a train now between Hanoi and Nanning but when I went it was 10+ hours on a bus including a lengthy golf buggy ride between no-mans-land with a 18yo kid armed with an AK at the Chinese border.
The bus trip between Phnom Penh and HCMC was utterly terrifying, we spent a quarter of the trip on the wrong side of the road with the driver holding down the horn to make oncoming traffic move out of the way, bigger vehicle and all that. There was an American couple trying to pay the driver to slow down but that just made him more angry. Really makes you appreciate a good sleeper train or plane.