Laos, a long brand new railway line has recently been launched, in a country that had not really known the train for decades. Philippe Gougler travels by train, from north to south via Luang Prabang, known for its dozens of Buddhist temples. He will have the chance to be invited to one of them to spend a day with the monks. Further east, near the Vietnamese border, another facet of the country's history opens up to him, a darker one. Laos is the country that has been the most bombed in the world. During the Vietnam War, between 1964 and 1973, the United States dropped more than 2 million tons of bombs. Nearly 50 years later, every day, men and women are still clearing mines.

Philippe Gougler travels nearly 10,000 kilometers from France to Vietnam. A country of legends where it is good to take the train. Philippe notably passes through the capital Hanoi where the train winds and weaves through the narrow streets of the city, at the edge of the houses. In the northwest of the country, he discovers the country of the Hmongs and its landscapes of rice terraces. In the center of the country, Philippe follows the trail of an ancient lost railway. In the Hue region, few people remember this train built at the time by the French, which was heading towards the neighboring country, Laos. A train which, in the colonial era, was part of a gigantic project: to connect all of Indochina by rail.

Philippe Gougler leaves for a trip to Slovenia, a small European country wedged between sea and mountains. And what better way to discover this little-known country than by train? To begin, he boards a small mine train which will take him under the mountains to discover sunken tunnels. There are also everyday trains, and the more unusual ones, which climb the mountains with cars on board as well as auto-trains which run on railway tracks dating from the Austro-Hungarian era.

Philippe Gougler begins his discovery of San Francisco with the emblematic “cable cars”, these trams which climb the steep hills of the city, offering panoramic views. He also discovered other, more modern ways of getting around, such as autonomous cars, driverless vehicles that navigate the streets of San Francisco. Philippe then boards the Coastal Starlight, a legendary line offering spectacular views from the California coast to Santa Barbara. The globetrotter's journey continues in San Francisco with the Golden Gate Bridge, symbol of the city. Finally, he crosses the majestic forests of giant sequoias by steam train.