The Slow Boat to Thailand

There’s definitely such a thing as too much research online, especially about travelling. If you go by the reviews online, the overnight buses we took in Vietnam are guaranteed death traps. One person even said that they regularly get in head-on collisions, where the bus bursts into flames “incinerating everyone on board.” Yikes. Our chosen mode of transportation to get back into Thailand, the slow boat up the Mekong, has some pretty bad reviews as well. Stories of 150 people crammed onto a small boat, long delays, even mutinies were all online, prepping us for what was sure to be a disastrous two days. We did have a couple things going for us. One, people only go online to rant about a bad experience, so we know not to put too much stock into those internet web loggers. Two, it’s low season around here. Three, most of the tourists seem to use the downstream route instead of the upstream, which we were taking. We were trying out best to be hopeful and positive, but were certainly expecting the worst. In reading all the awful reviews online, we did pick up some tips to make it as pleasant as possible. We loaded up on snacks (Pringles and candy), made sure we had our electronics fully charged and each had a book to read, and tried to get there at least an hour early to secure a seat. Well, we didn't make it an hour early as we were hoping, putting Steph’s anxiety on high alert. I was a little worried myself when we got to the pier at the lack of activity. We bought our tickets to Pak Beng, the halfway point and our destination for the night, which were actually cheaper than we were expecting. That at least made me happy. We raced some other tourists down the hill, eager to snag us a couple seats, to find a nearly empty boat. There was heaps of room, so we grabbed a couple bench seats facing each other with a table in between (bonus!) and spread out our stuff to dissuade anybody from trying to join. We were still guarding our territory when the boat pulled out an hour later, still nearly empty! Sweet relief!

Steph taking a nap with a bag over her face

Now, don’t get me wrong, this was no luxury cruise. No, that would have been about 4 times as expensive. This was the “local” option. That said, the boat was surprisingly nice – a bunch of tables with bench seats on either side, some seats pulled out of a van or car or something nailed down to the deck, a little shop with food and drinks, even a bathroom. There was maybe 10 of us tourists and at least that many locals. Everybody on board had enough room to stretch out and even nap if they so chose to, which pretty much everyone did at some point. We settled in for the roughly 8 hour journey to Pak Bang.

Cruising up the Mekong was relaxing, exciting, boring, beautiful, all of that at different times. The scenery, especially in that first day closer to Luang Prabang, was beautiful, with dense jungle framed by the occasional limestone cliff or mountain. We kept looking out for monkeys in the trees, as it just seemed like there should be, but never had any luck. Every now and then we’d hit a small rapid, more like a shoals, where the boat would slow down, the engine would groan, and we’d all watch, silently playing out the whole scenario should the engine cut out and we get smashed against that rock… Despite being seemingly remote, that stretch of river had a lot of activity. We literally didn’t go more than a couple hundred yards without some sign of human activity. There was generally always someone fishing at the shoals whenever we passed them. Every hour or so we’d pass a small village, where inevitably every child from the village would be splashing around naked in the water. They must do that a lot. We napped, read, listened to music or played cards to pass the time. Having a light load on the boat must have allowed us to go a bit faster than usual, since we pulled into Pak Beng only about 7 hours after we had set off. Day 1 down, easy as pie.

Day 2 wasn’t bad, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t as smooth as Day 1. Disappointingly, we had to take a different boat. We tried to get on the same boat as Day 1, but they just said “no” and pointed us to another boat. Nobody spoke any English, so none of us tourists were quite sure we were on the right boat, but couldn’t do anything else but trust the locals. Our new boat was not so nice. No tables this time, only a bunch more car seats. Still, they reclined so it wasn’t too bad (this is what we were expecting on Day 1 anyways). Also, it was a bit more crowded this time. All the same tourists from the day before were present, but more and more locals from Pak Beng kept streaming onto the boat. It never really filled up, and Steph and I were left with two 2-seater seats to share between us. Another win. The boat wasn’t as good, the scenery wasn’t as good, and the trip took a couple hours longer on Day 2. We passed the time in much the same way as Day 1, minus the cards and when it dumped rain on us for 10 minutes and we scrambled to tie down the rain curtains. Pretty much everyone we had talked to in Laos who had just taken the slow boat the other way said the same thing: “it’s fine, but just a little too long.” That was us the second day, we were ready to get off the boat and kept precise track of our progress on my phone for the last couple hours. All in all it was a great experience for us and we’re certainly glad we chose it. We rolled into Huay Xi right about 6 pm, too late to cross the border into Thailand that same day, so we grabbed a room at a guesthouse in town and reflected on our trip to date. It was our last night in Laos. Tomorrow, Thailand!