The slow boat is an absolute rite of passage for any backpacker wishing to travel between the north of Thailand and Laos, and it’s something I’ve wanted to do since I first heard about it 9 years ago. There are a couple of starting points for your journey from Northern Thailand to Laos, Chiang Rai is extremely popular as it’s only a couple of hours from the Laos border, but we were starting from Chiang Mai.
Spoiler alert: the boat doesn’t actually start in Chiang Mai, but as I say this is a popular starting point for many backpackers.
We caught the Green Bus from Chiang Mai terminal 3 bus station, going to Chiang Khlong, the Thai border town. It left at 9.30am and we had booked it a few days ahead when we were in Chiang Rai from their bus station. It cost 311 baht each which is roughly £7.50. You can book this bus online for a higher price but we’re more ‘go in person to sort it’ people. Also, if you book online you have to wait until the day to be allocated seats.
The bus was full and the journey took roughly 7 hours and made a couple of short stops. Most of the bus emptied out at a town about an hour from the border and there were mainly backpackers left. It made a stop at the junction for the Friendship bridge outside of the town so we jumped out here and into waiting tuk tuks which took us swiftly to the border point for a fixed fee of 50 baht (£1.15) each. We quickly got our exit stamp, the border was very quiet as it was late in the day. We noticed a sign saying that we would have to pay 10 baht overtime fee as it was after 4pm, but in the end they didn’t charge us.
You walk through the Thai border and to a counter where a woman is selling bus tickets to the Laos border, over the other side of the Mekong river. This cost us 35 baht (80p) each, which included an ‘after hours’ fee. We had to wait for the bus to fill up, but this only took around 10 minutes or so. The bus ticket seller offered to exchange our remaining baht for Laos Kip but as we were returning to Thailand at a later date we didn’t opt for this. You can also pay for a lot of things in Laos in baht (particularly in the border town) so unless you have a lot of leftover baht I wouldn’t bother.
Once you arrive on the Laos side you need to go to a window to collect a set of forms, make sure you have a pen handy to complete these! You will need a passport photo and then hand your forms in to the window along with your passport and then wait by the next window! We had to pay 40 baht (90p) to get our stamp. It’s important to note that when they return your passport to keep the departure slip safe as you will need that when leaving Laos. We left via land border to Cambodia and those who didn’t have this slip had to pay $5.
There’s another window towards the exit where you pay for your visa – ours cost $40 each. Once you’ve done this you just need to grab a tuk tuk to the town of Huay Xai, it’s a short ride and tuk tuks are fixed at 200 baht (£4.05) a person. I’d read a few blogs about this part and I was worried it all sounded a bit complicated but it was incredible straightforward and took very little time.
We stayed at Little Hostel in Huay Xai as I’d read great reviews about the helpfulness of the owner and we weren’t let down. There’s only two 4 bed dorms here so it is (as the name suggests) a small hostel, but the owner sold us our tickets for the slow boat (430,000 Kip each – approx £16.70) for the next day (which included a pick up from the hostel) and also sorted us out with SIM cards. If you buy your tickets direct from the pier it will cost 400,000 Kip (about £15.30, we were happy to pay an extra £1.40 each to save the hassle of going to the pier). We were also able to order breakfast and a takeaway lunch for the boat. We dined next door at Bar How and whilst the food was good, the service was pretty slow!
We were picked up from the hostel the next day at 8.30am and were told the boat would leave at 9.30am. The hostel owner told us our seat numbers for that day but her parting advice for the following day was there were no seat numbers for the following day and to be there early to fight for your seat!
We arrived to the boat in good time and found our seats. The seats are made from old mini van seats and aren’t fixed to the ground so there is a little bit of fighting for leg space. The seats had pieces of paper on them representing numbers so you can do a little bit of switching of you don’t like your seat! We did switch ours slightly so we weren’t next to the doorway leading to the back of the boat. We were happy with our seats on the first day though – we were in the front of the boat about half away from the noise of the engine and on the outside so we had unrestricted views and we were facing into the gangway so we had a bit of leg room.
We eventually set sail around 10am and sailed for about 6 hours on the first day. The scenery was beautiful and it was nice to watch the world go by with nothing else to do. The boat was quite large and a bus load of backpackers from Chiang Rai arrived late so were left with the plastic stools and seats at the front of the boat in the blazing sun all day. They didn’t seem to mind though as they made their way through several cases of Lao beer and got louder and louder as the day went on! As we set off to start with on both days the breeze was a little chilly and people were pulling on hoodies to keep this at bay.
We arrived into Pakbeng around 4pm and Joe at some point had managed to climb into the luggage room at the back and reposition our bags at the top so we were able to make a quick getaway! If you can do this I recommend it! We were one of the very few that hadn’t booked accommodation in advance and therefore didn’t have a jeep waiting for us on arrival!
We enquired at a couple of places on our way up the hill but they were full and I started to panic that maybe I’d made a mistake. It wasn’t long before we were approached by someone from Thipphavanh Guesthouse asking if we needed a room. We looked at the room and took it – it wasn’t the most luxurious room we’ve ever stayed in and there wasn’t hot water but for 200,000 Kip (£7.70) we really couldn’t complain. We had dinner that night at Saibaidee restaurant which was definitely the go to place. It overlooked the Mekong and I can thoroughly recommend the buffalo and pumpkin curry! We ordered sandwiches from a place near the pier to pick up the next day.
The next day we got up and went for breakfast before heading down to the pier for around 7.45am. There were lots of slow boats around and we could see the one that we caught the day before. What we didn’t realise was that we wouldn’t be on the same boat so ask around when you arrive. When we realised we made sure we were quick to board and handed our luggage in. We found a semi decent seat (difficult as the boat was much smaller and we had to have a forward facing seat with less leg room). Those who didn’t arrive early were stuck right at the back, almost in the engine room and even a short stop at the toilet in that area was deafening!
The boat set off around 9am and the scenery again was incredible with lots of stops for local people to get on and off. It seemed that more people were getting on than off and after a while there were people standing and sitting in the aisles. It was so crowded it was hard to manoeuvre yourself to the toilet and it definitely felt a little unsafe at times as it was that crowded. Day two was much longer than day one and hard going, the seat felt more uncomfortable and the legroom was small. We were glad to finally disembark around 5pm. There is an office at the port where you queue up and buy a ticket into Luang Prabang which had a set fee of 40,000 Kip (£1.55) each. These drop you at the Night Market so make sure you know where you are staying from here! A lot of people who got on the boat from Chiang Rai didn’t have a Laos SIM cards yet so found themselves a little lost. We had local SIM cards so we were able to give directions in the tuk tuk to the centre but this isn’t something to rely on!
Overall I’m really glad that we did take the slow boat, it was a unique way to travel, but I’m not sure I would do it again! If you do take this journey I would recommend taking a hoodie for first thing and maybe a pillow to help increase comfort levels. There are snacks and beer available on board to buy but these are more expensive than on land so take snacks and lunch. The toilets were pretty clean to start but as the day went on they got a little dirty and were running out of toilet paper. The first day was definitely the worst for the toilets and I put that down to the amount of beer consumed on board!
Meandering Maxwells 