How To Get From Chiang Rai To Luang Prabang
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If you are wanting to travel from Thailand to Laos without forking out the cash for a flight, then it’s likely you’ll be taking the exact route we are about to describe below. It sounds overwhelming, but we promise, it’s not as bad as it sounds (well, at least not all of it)!
The famous slowboat you can take from Huay Xai to Luang Prabang!
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We won’t lie, when we first looked up this journey, it was a lot to take in. So many different moving parts, not to mention the fact that it takes 3-days! However, now that we’ve done the journey, it really wasn’t all that bad, and it seems that a lot of the information online is quite out of date, so we’re here to bring you up to speed as at January 2024!
TIP: You can also complete this journey from Chiang Mai, however, it will take a little bit longer and you’ll definitely be a bit more pushed for time. If you’d like to check out a tour that will help you organise this, click here!
STEP 1: Bus from Chiang Rai to Chiang Khong
Getting the bus from Chiang Rai to Chiang Khong is relatively easy, however, we found that a lot of what we had read online prior to commencing the journey was quite outdated. In fact, I think we only found one Reddit post which seemed to have the updated information, but aside from that, everything was outdated.
In the morning we walked over to Chiang Rai Bus Terminal 1, which is the central bus station in town and is likely where you arrived into if you took the bus from Chiang Mai. A bunch of different buses leave from this terminal, including a public bus to the White Temple if you’d like to save a little cash!
NOTE: We stayed at Na-Rak-O Resort during our time in Chiang Rai and really enjoyed it. If you’d like to check it out, click here.
While there is different information online regarding which stop to get the bus from, we simply looked for the bus that said Chiang Rai to Chiang Khong. We’ve read differing things about the frequency of this bus - some articles note that it runs every 30 minutes, others say every hour. We’d therefore recommend aiming to get the bus on the hour, and if you miss it, hopefully you only have to wait 30 minutes and not another hour! Regardless, the bus runs very frequently, from about 6AM to 5PM. I don’t believe you are able to pre-book tickets, so just rock up on the day and as with most things, the earlier the better to guarantee you get out of Chiang Rai around the time you are planning.
The trip itself is about 2 hours, so not too long, however, the bus is quite rundown and smaller than buses you might have taken from Chiang Mai, so if you want to guarantee seats together, we’d definitely recommend getting there early. We got there at 8.45AM for the 9AM bus and weren’t able to get seats together and the bus was almost completely full.
Before hopping on, it’s always worth confirming with the driver that it is the correct bus to take if you are trying to get to Laos - given this is such a common route they’ll understand what you’re wanting. Once confirmed, your big bags will go up the back of the bus and you can bring your smaller bags onboard with you.
NOTE: There is so much to do in Chiang Rai! If you are staying for a few days before moving onto Laos, check out our two videos from Chiang Rai to give you an idea of what to do! Click here for Part 1 and here for Part 2!
Don’t be alarmed when you don’t have to buy a ticket before hopping on, or even before the bus departs, this is common practice. The bus will generally drive for about 15-20 minutes (until it is too late for you to change your mind), and then present a sign with the different stop options and the prices. Now this is one part of the journey where we found that information online was a bit outdated as the prices were all different to what we were expecting. Previously, the bus used to Chiang Khong, however, if you were wanting to go to the border, it would stop and let you off just outside the town. From there, you would catch a tuk tuk (they would be waiting for you) and this would take you to the actual border crossing. The cost of the bus therefore used to be around 65 baht, and the tuk tuk would be 50 baht per person.
Want to see what the journey is really like? We made a full video of our whole experience, check it out!
This is no longer the case (at least in our experience). The bus now drops you directly at the Thai-Laos Friendship Bridge border crossing, however, at an increased rate. Instead of paying 65 baht, you will now need to fork out 140 baht per person. While this works out a little more expensive than the previous arrangements, it is much more convenient to take one mode of transport and be dropped right at the border. Obviously, if you are planning on spending a night or two in Chiang Khong, don’t get off at this stop. You should continue on the bus until it’s final stop in Chiang Khong. Funnily enough, it actually costs less to ride the bus all the way to Chiang Khong, even though it’s further!
So after 2 hours in the bus, and a bunch of random stops to let people off in what seems like the middle of nowhere, you’ll arrive at the border and it will be time for you to say goodbye to Thailand!
STEP 2: THAI EXIT IMMIGRATION
You’re now off the bus and it’s time to officially say goodbye to Thailand! Now in the past, you were required to present your departure card at passport control that you would have received with your arrival card when arriving in Thailand, however, from November 2024 until the end of April 2024 (accurate as of 8 February 2024), Thai Immigration as paused the use of these. So if you are travelling before the end of April, no need to panic that you’ve lost a piece of a paper that you were never actually given!
Exiting Thailand is relatively straightforward. You will obviously need to present your passport and they will stamp you out of the country.
TIP: If you’ve got a bunch of Thai Baht leftover, don’t stress too much, this is still accepted in most parts of Laos, especially around the border, so you will be able to still make use of it. There is also a currency exchange once you arrive on the other side of the bridge where you can exchange it for LAK if you wish!
Once your passport is stamped, there is a desk where you can purchase your ticket for the next part of the journey!
STEP 3: BUS ACROSS THE THAI-LAOS FRIENDSHIP BRIDGE
This is a very short part of the journey, however, a necessary one. Even though it is a literal bridge that represents the border between Thailand and Laos, you are not able to walk across it. You must take this bus. Please don’t try.
As mentioned above, you can buy your ticket from the desk (they will likely flag you over if you don’t happen to see them) and this cost 20 baht per person. It sounds cheap, but considering HOW short this bus journey is, it’s pretty wild.
Nonetheless, it’s necessary, so pay the 20 baht and wait for the bus to be ready to leave. It will generally wait for quite a few people to be ready before loading up and leaving, so if you’re in a rush, you may just have to hope for a bit of luck that it leaves quickly!
The journey is super short, and quite literally just takes you across the bridge, so don’t get too comfortable! It is a little fun watching the flags that line the bridge change from Thailand flags to Laos flags, marking your (non)official arrival into Laos!
STEP 4: Laos entry immigration
Time to make that entry official! We won’t go into too much detail on Visa requirements, as this is really up to you to determine based on what passport you hold, however, there are generally two options - pre-organising an e-Visa, and a Visa on Arrival.
TIP: If you’d like to exchange any money, or take out some LAK there is a currency exchange and an ATM before you go through passport control.
The Visa on Arrival seems to be by far the more popular route taken and for this you will require your passport (duh) and a passport photo. If you don’t have a passport photo I believe they will scan a copy of your passport for you at an additional cost. It is recommended that you use USD to pay for the Visa on Arrival as it works out to be cheaper than paying in Thai Baht. The Visa on Arrival also seems to be slightly cheaper than the e-Visa, so if you are travelling with USD, or are organised enough to have this prepared beforehand, then this is the recommended option. As mentioned above, double check the requirements based on what passport you hold and the pricing does seem to differ based on this as well, so make sure you know what you will be paying before you arrive.
If you’re like us, travelling longer term and are less organised and are without USD, than the e-Visa is an equally convenient option. The Laos e-Visa website quotes a 3-day turnaround on the e-Visas (pending there are no issues), and this was our experience which was great. The e-Visa also requires a passport photo, however, they provide some guidance on what this must look like, so you’re able to just take a photo on your phone which is great.
At the border, you will need to fill out an arrival card, and keep a hold of your departure card for when you eventually leave this beautiful country and then, with Visa in hand, you’re ready to stamp into Laos! When we went through passport control, we were asked to pay an additional 50 baht per person fee, which he described as the e-Visa processing fee. We hadn’t really read about this online, and didn’t really understand what it was for, but you don’t really ask questions at passport control so we paid it and moved on! Something to be mindful of when you’re rationing out how much Thai Baht to carry with you on the journey!
STEP 5: Tuk Tuk to Huay Xai
Welcome to Laos! You’re now OFFICIALLY in Laos, but unfortunately, still 2-days away from your final destination! When you get outside there are tuk tuks waiting to transfer people into Huay Xai (HouayXay - there seem to be many spellings). This will cost you 50,000LAK or 100 baht. This is a fixed rate - you will have no luck negotiating. And before you plan to just walk, it is FAR. We were in the tuk tuk for about 15-20 minutes. We’ve previously read a blog post about a couple who decided to walk, and about 5km into the walk, with all their bags, they realised it was far too hard and flagged down a tuk tuk. They ended up paying the same rate as if they had have just paid at the station.
The tuk tuk will show you where your accommodation is (if you have pre-booked), so make sure you have this information available. We chose to pre-book our accommodation and stayed at Oudomphone House, which was very central, had the option to purchase packed lunches, and could organise the next step of the journey for us.
STEP 6: Spend the night in Huay Xai
Now you’re in Huay Xai, settle in, grab a bite to eat, and get ready for a massive two days. While in the past you could complete the border crossing and board the slowboat on the same day, this is a lot harder now as the slowboat leaves a few hours earlier. Ours was scheduled for about 9/9.30 in the morning, so you’d need to be crossing the border very early in the morning. We’d recommend just working in a night in Huay Xai and planning to get the boat the next day.
It is highly recommended that you pre-book your tickets the day before, so you can get assigned a seat. We opted to just organise this through our accommodation, and paid 430,000LAK each. This cost us a little more than if we were to pay at the port itself (this will cost you 400,000LAK if you’re going all the way to Luang Prabang), however, you’d need to get yourself to the port and back which will cost a little extra. Our ticket also included a transfer in the morning to the port which was super helpful and they got us there nice and early to ensure we got our seat.
STEP 7: Day 1 of the slowboat
We had heard very mixed reviews of the slowboat, and let’s just say, you will experience both ends of the spectrum. Taking in spectacular views, enjoying cruising down the Mekong, waving to the locals on the riverbank. Sounds pretty nice. As we explain the slowboat process, you’ll start to understand the other end of the spectrum.
The morning of the slowboat, you will either need to get yourself to the pier, or, if you were like us, and booked through your hostel, you may already have a transfer organised. We left our hostel at 8.30, and arrived at the pier around 10 minutes later. The time on our boat tickets was listed as 9.00AM so we arrived just under 30-minutes early (which we’d recommend)!
TIP: Make sure you grab yourself some food and water in town before hopping on the boat. Most hostels/restaurants will sell packed lunches (usually a sandwich and some fruit) and we’d highly recommend getting yourself a sandwich or two. Not only are they delicious, but once on the boat, food options are limited, and more pricey. Plus, if you get a boat like ours, it was impossible to navigate your way around because of all the people, so most people didn’t leave their seats.
At the pier they’ll have a brief once over of your ticket and then you’ll board the boat. All the boats look a little different and have different seating arrangements, so we can’t guarantee our experience will be your experience. Our boat had seats lining the boat vertically, rather than in rows like a bus. The front of the boat wasn’t undercover, and unfortunately this is where our seats where, however, we were just happy to not be near the back where the engine is as we’ve heard this is unbelievably loud. Our boat had pieces of paper on the seat with seat numbers, so we sat with the corresponding seat as to what was on our ticket. Our bags also went in a room towards the back of the boat.
Now, if you’re picturing nice, luxury seating with plenty of leg room, space to put your smaller bags, you’ll be sorely disappointed. The seats are quite literally ripped straight out of vans, and while they could be worse, it was not particularly comfortable. We were really jammed in and had to almost alternate whose shoulders were in front of the others, because there just simply wasn’t enough room. Funnily enough though, this was when our ride was looking quite good! As we were outside, we had heaps of leg room, as compared to those who were undercover and were pretty much knee to knee facing each other. But then, they arrived.
Yeah… it was a little cozy.
By they, we mean HUNDREDS. Okay maybe not hundreds, but it sure felt like it. When the first wave arrived, we were like yeah good luck finding a seat, and then they disappeared down the back of the boat (presumably they did in fact find a seat). Then the next wave came. And the next. Each wave of people bigger than the last. By now, our boat was way behind schedule, but it seemed as though they were expecting these groups to arrive and so were waiting for them. Most of them seemed to have done (in our opinion) the harder journey, and did the border crossing the same morning. As more people got on the boat, the locals laughs grew louder and louder, it was like they knew there wasn’t enough room but wanted to see how many people they could squeeze in anyways.
By the time the flood of people stopped, the aisle in front of us was now full of plastic fold out chairs, and the front of the boat was full of bags and people sitting on the floor. You might think that doesn’t sound too bad, but remember, the first day of the boat is 7 hours!
Overall, aside from being extremely uncomfortable, we were pretty fortunate with our seats. If you’re taking the slowboat, we’d definitely recommend the following:
Book a day early and don’t try to ride the same day - the journey from Thailand is already hard enough, give yourself the extra night to rest and recuperate and avoid being part of the crowd that arrives over an hour after the boat was meant to depart and ends up sitting on the floor for 7 hours.
Arrive early! If you want to guarantee yourself a seat, arrive early. It doesn’t matter that you have an assigned seat, they will put more people on the boat than there are seats, and once people are sitting down, you can’t see the seat numbers anyways.
Anything you might need, pack in your carry on that you will keep with you. Accessing your main luggage is just not possible, so anything you want during the day needs to be on you.
Prepare for all weather. As we said, we were sat outside without any cover. In the morning, it was quite chilly and most people had some warmer clothes on, but of course, as the sun came out, we were in the sun for hours on end, so hats and sunscreen are a must!
Most importantly, DO NOT LOSE YOUR TICKET! Even if it doesn’t get checked on day 1, it absolutely will on day 2, even if you are already on the boat, and if you don’t have it anymore, you will have to pay for a new one. We saw this happen to a few unfortunate backpackers who had misplaced their tickets.
STEP 8: Spend the night in Pakbeng
Congratulations, you survived the first day of the slowboat! After making many stops along the way where we were meant to pick up more people but had no room to pick up more people, we finally made it to Pakbeng.
NOTE: The night in Pakbeng is not included in your ticket, so you will need to pay for a nights accommodation!
When you arrive in Pakbeng we’d recommend just jumping off the boat and waiting a little before trying to get your bags. I don’t think anyone moved for about 20 minutes because people were trying to get to the back, so the people who had actually managed to get their bags, couldn’t actually get off. It was a bit of a nightmare but eventually you WILL get your bags off.
When you get off the boat, if you have pre-booked your accommodation, there will be someone with a sign with your name on it. If you haven’t, don’t worry, there is plenty of option and we’d probably recommend not pre-booking, unless you want to stay somewhere particularly fancy. This was the first time we’ve ever just rocked up to a town without any accommodation and we’d found ourselves a room within our first minute of getting off the boat. There will be plenty of people with signs for different accommodations, and you can ask how much for the night, whether you get your own bathroom, whether there is WiFi and any other questions that you deem appropriate. We paid 150,000LAK for the night, which works out to roughly $10 AUD, and we had our own private room with an ensuite, free WiFi and walking distance to the pier.
TIP: We could only find one ATM that was walking distance from the centre of town in Pakbeng, and it wasn’t working when we were there, so we’d highly recommend making sure you have enough cash before starting the slowboat journey to last the two days!
In Pakbeng, there are lots of different restaurants and bakeries to find yourself something to eat for the night and if you’re feeling energetic after doing nothing for 7 hours, there are even a few bars. We’d also recommend pre-ordering your packed lunch for the following day so in the morning you can just pick this up nice and easy.
STEP 9: Day 2 of the slowboat
Presuming you booked your ticket all the way through to Luang Prabang, you don’t need to do anything ticket wise, except not lose it, because on day 2, they will properly check and take your tickets.
This was the layout of our slowboat on day 2 - much better! Unfortunately, a few people did still have to sit on the floor, but overall it seems like more people had seats and more space in general!
In the morning, we recommend getting up really early, like before 7am and going to grab something takeaway for breakfast. If you pre-ordered your packed lunch, make sure you pick this up as well, and if you didn’t, make sure you order one somewhere before you get on the boat.
Now you’re probably wondering why so early. Remember all those hundreds (not really hundreds) of people who got on late and either got the horrible plastic chair seats, or even better, the floor? Well, do you really think they’re stupid enough to let that happen again? People were making their way down to the boat as early as before 7.30AM to ensure they got seats. And yes, that is almost 2-hours before the boat is scheduled to leave. While our boat on day 2 was actually much better, with a more regular seating arrangement, there were still an unfortunate few who had to sit on the floor, or on wooden blocks, and day 2 was even longer - 8 hours on the water.
The journey will be much the same as the first day, and again, plan for all weathers, as it was actually quite cold the entire journey!
STEP 10: You made it! Now settle in and enjoy everything Luang Prabang has to offer!
Wow - what a journey! Three days later and you’ve made it to Luang Prabang. When you get off the boat there will be tuk tuks waiting to transport people into the town centre. There is a ticket desk where you can buy tickets for 40,000LAK per person. If you’re like us and you’ve run out of cash before arriving, ask the tuk tuk drivers if they can take you to an ATM. We paid 50,000LAK instead of 40,000 for them to make the pit stop for us.
The tuk tuks will drop you out the front of the night market, and from here you can either walk to your accommodation, or there are smaller tuk tuks you can take if you are a little further out.
And that’s it! That’s how you get from Chiang Rai to Luang Prabang! We hope that was a helpful guide for you, with plenty of personal experiences thrown in there so you know what to truly expect! While it sounds like a long and tedious journey, it really is a great introduction to Laos and one of the more unique experiences you will have during your time in South East Asia.
