5am! Our alarm goes off! It’s time for an adventure…

We are collected just after 6am by our minibus which is going to take us on the first stage of our journey from Thailand to Laos. The whole journey took us 2 days in total, but was absolutely worth it for the beautiful scenery we got to see. So here’s how the journey went…

2 hour minibus from Chiang Rai to Chiang Khong (a Thai border town).

In Chiang Khong we had to ‘exit’ Thailand and have our visa signed off as we left.

10 minute government bus ride from Thai immigration across the Mekong to Laos immigration.

We then spent about an hour here filling in paperwork, getting our Laos visa on arrival and then waiting for other people.

10 minute songtaw ride to the companies ‘office’ to buy snacks and bits for the slow boat. I’ll come back to this…

20 minute TERRIFYING songtaw ride to the slow boat pier. This guy COULD NOT drive. I had to tell him to put the car in 1st to start it and go around corners as he kept stalling it and was unable to restart the engine. He was swerving all over the place… nightmare!!! But, we survived.

6 hour slow boat journey from Huay Xai to Pakbeng.

Overnight in Pakbeng.

8 hour slow boat journey from Pakbeng to Luang Prabang.

20 minute songtaw from Luang Prabang slow boat pier into the centre of town.

Ok… when I break the journey down into that it sounds far more stressful than it actually was. We wanted to go with a company who would purchase all of these individual bits for us to save us hassle at different stages. In general, it worked out well, but the guy who was our ‘local guide’ was a bit of an idiot. He kept giving us all speeches about how he was there to help us and would be travelling all the way to Luang Prabang with us. He told us he wasn’t going to B**ls**t us! But, he did just that! He never made it on the boat with us. His company purposefully takes you to their ‘office’ and keeps you there so you don’t have time to buy snacks at the slow boat pier which are significantly cheaper. He told us that we had assigned seats on the boat… when we got there no-one knew which boat to get on (there were 2) and there was no assigned seating at all. We all decided that he only knew the word B**ls**t because he was the biggest B**ls**ter going!!! Regardless of all of this the whole journey was pretty smooth and going with a company was the better choice!

We met a lot of lovely people along the way from all around the World. We had some lovely conversations, watched a lot of British people get very drunk on the boat, saw some amazing scenery and relaxed.

Our overnight in Pakbeng was really good. We didn’t book accommodation for this and ended up with what I can only described as a 4* hotel room for £10 for the night. I did have to work my best bartering skills for this one and we both put our bags on at one point when they weren’t coming down on the price. Trust me.. that trick works. He was desperately keeping us there after this one.

Here are a selection of photos from our time on the slow boat.