Since leaving Ankor Wat we have been to Kampot and Sihanoukville in Cambodia and then to Chiang Mai, Chiang Dao, Pai and Chiang Rai in northern Thailand. I plan to write about and post pictures of all of these places but for now I’m going to skip ahead for a moment and talk about the last two days which we spent cruising down the Mekong River from Huay Xai at the Laos border to Luang Prabang, where we arrived last night.

Starting out: from Chiang Rai, Thailand we hopped on the public bus from the ‘Old Bus Station’ or ‘Bus Terminal 1’ as it is sometimes called. These buses run to Chiang Khong, the Thai border town, every hour and it was about a two hour ride before we were dropped at the side of the road that leads to the Thai-Lao border. From here we caught a tuk tuk down to the actual border crossing, about a ten minute drive.

We arrived at the border checkpoint on the Thai side of the border, had our passports stamped and walked through to another bus that took us across the Friendship Bridge to the Lao side. At Laos border control we filled out our paperwork to apply for a visa on arrival, got our passports stamped again and were directed to get in another tuk tuk to take us into the actual town of Huay Xai.  Dealing with government bureaucracy for things like visas and customs always makes me a little nervous but everything went smoothly and, despite the multitude of steps involved since we left Chiang Rai that morning, the whole process was relatively quick.

We probably would have had time to take an early morning bus from Chiang Rai, cross the border and get on the boat to Luang Prabang all in one day but we chose to skip the stess and do the border crossing the day before and spend a night in Huay Xai. Huay Xai isn’t much of a town itself; it is the jumping off point for the boat trip we were doing and for other jungle treks in the area so it is mostly a stopping point for tourists heading other places. That being said, it was quite charming. We had dinner at a little restaurant built on a hill with a terrace looking over the river where we watched the sun set. The next morning we had breakfast at Sabai Cafe where the enthusiastic owner made us delicious egg sandwiches and extra baguette sandwiches to bring on the boat ride.

We chose to buy our boat tickets from our hotel. There was a slight price markup but it included a tuk tuk ride down to the pier so it seemed worth it. We were picked up at our hotel at 9:30AM and arrived at the boat about ten minutes later. The boat doesn’t actually leave until 11:30 so we were some of the first passengers there and had our choice of seats.

Our long wooden boat for the first day was surprisingly comfortable. There were plenty of seats for all the passengers, two toilets in the back and a bit of room to walk around the giant pile of luggage at the front of the boat and admire the views.

The trip that day took about six hours and we arrived in Pakbeng around 5:30PM that evening. Like Huay Xai, Pakbeng basically serves as a stopping point for tourists heading to other places. There are plenty of guesthouses and restaurants for those passing through but not much to see. We had booked our guesthouse for the night online ahead of time. We knew that this would probably come with a higher pricetag but we decided it was worth it to stay somewhere with good reviews rather than booking last minute with one of the many sales people who met us on the dock. We had read horror stories about Pakbeng and had heard it described as ‘a hole’. However, Phonemany Guesthouse where we stayed was perfecty clean and nice and we had some decent Indian food for dinner at one of the restaurants down the street. Overall, no complaints.

The next morning we had breakfast at our hotel and then wandered down toward the dock, stopping along the way to pick up some sandwiches and snacks for part two of our boat trip. That morning’s boat was scheduled to leave at 9:30AM but our guide from the day before had told us to get there around 8 or 8:30. We got there a little before 8:30 and were glad we did since we got one of the last sets of two seats together. The boat for the second day was not the same one that had brought us to Pakbeng and this new boat was significantly smaller, without enough seats for the passengers continuing on from the day before, let alone for all the locals we would pick up along the way.

The second day was decidedly less comfortable than the first. The seats were smaller, older and lacked headrests. We stopped frequently to pick up and drop off locals at the many villages along the way. They came aboard with live chickens, what smelled like a huge bag of fish and what we later found out was an entire leg of a recently butchered buffalo.

Since there were no seats they sat on the floor or on little plastic stools placed in the aisles. When we completely ran out of room some of the cargo started getting thrown on the roof of the boat.

The scenery along the way was occasionally beautiful but nothing spectacular. However, we got to see a side of Laos that we probably would have otherwise missed: little temples popping out of the jungle and rustic villages built into the hillside, fishermen with their nets and little children playing and bathing in the river.

About eight hours after we set out we finally pulled up to the dock in Luang Prabang. Of course, the boats don’t stop in the actual town but about 10 km upstream so we loaded ourselves in yet another tuk tuk to drive in to the city center.

Now that it is over I can honestly say that I’m glad we chose this boat trip as our method of travel to Luang Prabang. Not only was it significantly cheaper than flying it was also the type of experience we would never have been able to have on one of the two week long vacations that we normally take when we have jobs.

Part of what I want from this trip is the chance to travel slowly, to get to really experience the journey and not just the destination, as cliche as that sounds. I realized that other than Canada and Mexico I have only ever entered a foreign by flying into an airport. There is something special about getting to travel to a new place over land and water and seeing how one place transitions into another; it’s different than just being plunked down on an airplane.