Leaning In

Our journey from Chiang Rai in Northern Thailand to Luang Prabang in Laos took 3 days, 2 buses, 2 slow boats and about 4 tuk tuks! When we first set off to the bus station in Chiang Rai we had hoped we would be able to catch the slow boat that day. Unfortunately, there was no official information online (that we could find anyway!) that gave a timetable of when the slow boat leaves. All of our information was coming from blogs we had read and they all seemed to suggest different times so we really didn’t know what to believe. All we could do was get on the earliest bus there was from Chiang Rai to the border and hope that everything would go smoothly! 

So we got the bus at 7.30am for what should have been about 2 hours, although was nearer 2 and half hours after all the stops. We arrived at Thai customs and had our passports stamped. Once through we bought a ticket for the bus that takes you across the Friendship Bridge to Laos customs. Once there were sufficient numbers to fill the bus we boarded, and made the 2 minute drive across the friendship bridge to the Laos border. 

We filled out our visa forms, paid the fee and were officially stamped into the country. Now we just hoped we would get to the river in time for the boat. There were tuk tuks waiting outside, and six of us were piled into one. The driver told us we had already missed the boat but none of us were sure whether to believe that or not, especially when he dropped us right outside a guesthouse in town that seemed to be expecting us. We all decided that we would rather go down to the ticket office at the river and find out for ourselves whether we had missed the boat or not so off we went. One of the guys we had shared a tuk tuk with had a fold up bike with him, which we were very jealous of as he went speeding off, while we struggled with our bags in the blistering heat. But we made the 15 minute walk down the river where we found out that yes, we had officially missed the boat! 

Oh well, 11am isn’t too early for a beer right?! The six of us headed to a nearby café and helped ourselves to a big bottle of Beerlao each. We spent the next couple of hours chatting with our new travel companions, Jon and Steph from Manchester, Luke from the Netherlands and Wataru from Japan. It was nice to get to know some of the people that we would be spending the next 2 days with!

We went and bought our tickets for the following morning’s boat, which was when we found out that the boat is due to leave at 9am, although the woman at the office said it wouldn’t leave until 9.45am. Either way there was no way we could have ever made it here on time, which made us all feel a little better! Now we just had to find somewhere to stay in this little town of Huay Xai. Thankfully this proved to be very easy as there was a guesthouse just a little way up the hill from the river which Ryan and I had a look at and decided it would do us for the night. We had done enough walking with all of our bags for one day! 

We headed back into the main part of town in search of an ATM and some food. After several failed attempts at getting money out and Ryan’s card getting eaten, we went to a money exchange where we were told our cards probably weren’t working because at certain times of the day the internet dips and the machines don’t work. So that was great! We were able to exchange some cash which gave us enough to get something to eat and we just hoped that the ATM would work in the morning! 

Thankfully it did, so we got what we needed and headed down to the café we had been at the day previous. Here we got some banana pancakes for breakfast and some sandwiches made up to take with us on the boat. Shortly after 9am we went down to the boat and got our bags loaded on. Our seats were at the front which was where all the big bags were being put on, so we waited until nearer the departure time to get onboard. Cosy would be an understatement for the seating arrangements! I should explain that the seats on board are old bus seats that are just set in the boat so if you move they move which can prove to be a bit of a problem! We were all piled on and there were still a lot of people turning up to board the boat. They ended up boarding another boat and thankfully some people from our boat also moved so this gave us a little more room to spread out. 

At around 10am we set off down the Mekong, and there wasn’t much else to do but settle in for the 7 hour journey. The scenery was beautiful and the people watching was pretty good too! We had downloaded some shows to watch to help pass the time as well. I wouldn’t say the journey flew by, but it definitely wasn’t as painful as we had anticipated! At around 5pm we arrived in Pakbeng, a little town that’s main purpose seems to be to service the slow boats that stop here everyday. We had booked into a guesthouse and were picked up by a tuk tuk at the pier and taken there. We got some dinner, watched the sunset over the Mekong and toasted that we had survived the first day on the slow boat!

The next morning began very much like the previous one, banana pancakes for breakfast and sandwiches made up for lunch. We were dropped back at the pier where we got on a different, and much bigger boat. Once everyone had been piled on the fact that it was bigger didn’t seem to make much of a difference to the comfort levels but at least there was more room to stand up and walk about!

8 hours later we arrived at our destination and climbed what felt like about a hundred steps up from the pier. It was here that we found out we weren’t actually in Luang Prabang and had to get yet another tuk tuk into the town. A load of us were piled in and after watching all the rest of the tuk tuks leave, eventually we set off into town. Thankfully the journey wasn’t too long, and our accommodation was only a couple of minutes from where we were dropped off. We bid farewell to our travel companions, although as it turns out we would be continually running into people we met on the slow boat for the duration of our time in Laos! 

So that’s it, that’s our experience of the slow boat. It was a bit of an endurance, but we are glad that we did it. There are definitely easier ways to get from Thailand to Laos, but in our opinion the slow boat is an experience worth taking if you can. It’s not something I would want to do on a regular basis but I’m glad to be able to say that we did it; and we survived!