Laos and northern Thailand in 14 days, by road and river
There is one good reason to combine these two countries rather than flying between them, and it is a boat. From Huay Xai on the Lao side of the Thai border, a slow boat runs downstream to Luang Prabang over two days, with a night at a river town called Pakbeng in the middle. You arrive in Laos the w
- Duration
- 14 days
- Pace
- Moderate
- Hotel changes
- 5
- Best months
- Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb
- From
- $2,170 per person
The rest of the route is built around that crossing. Northern Thailand first, because it is the easier half and it acclimatises you. Then the river, then Luang Prabang, then the railway south.
Fourteen days, five hotel changes, one land border, two days on the water, and two rail legs.
Who it suits: second-time visitors to Southeast Asia, travellers who want a slow overland thread rather than a series of flights, and anyone who has done Thailand’s beaches and wants its north.
Your specialist: Paz Prosianoy or Osnat Angerman, with our Thai partner running the first five days and our own Hanoi office running Laos.
A note on who is on the ground. Our own offices are in Japan, Vietnam, India and the Philippines. Thailand we run through a Thai partner we have worked with for years. Laos is run by our own Hanoi office. On this route you are handed from one to the other at the border, and the handover is arranged rather than assumed: our people meet you on the Lao side.
Day by day
Northern Thailand, days 1 to 5
Day 1: Arrive Chiang Mai. Transfer, nothing scheduled. A hotel inside the old walls or on the quieter river side.
Day 2: Chiang Mai. The old city temples on foot in the morning with a guide, Wat Phra Singh and Wat Chedi Luang among them, then Doi Suthep above the city in the late afternoon when the light is good and the coaches have gone. Evening at a night market, which in Chiang Mai is worth doing.
Day 3: Chiang Mai, free or working. Options: a cooking day that starts in a market garden, a visit to an elephant observation project where there is no riding, bathing or performance of any kind, or a day doing nothing. We name the specific project in your proposal and we explain what makes it different from the others.
Day 4: Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai. About 120 miles (190 km) north and three hours, stopping at the hot springs and at Wat Rong Khun, the white temple, which is a contemporary artist’s ongoing project and much stranger than the photographs suggest. Afternoon at the black house, Baan Dam, which is the same idea from the opposite direction.
Day 5: Chiang Rai and the Golden Triangle. North to where Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet on the river, with the opium museum at Sop Ruak, which is better than it needs to be. Then up to Doi Mae Salong, a mountain village founded by Chinese nationalist soldiers who never went home, for tea and a completely different set of food. Back to Chiang Rai.
The river, days 6 and 7
Day 6: Cross the border, and start down the Mekong. Early transfer to Chiang Khong and across the Friendship Bridge to Huay Xai, where our Lao team meets you. Immigration on both sides takes as long as it takes and we build the morning around that rather than around a departure time.
Aboard by late morning. The first day is about six hours downstream to Pakbeng: forest, sandbanks, buffalo, villages where the boat is the only way in, and very little else. Night in a lodge above the river at Pakbeng, which is a one-street town that exists because the boat stops there.
Day 7: Pakbeng to Luang Prabang. Another seven hours or so on the water, with a stop at a Khmu village and at the Pak Ou caves near the end, where several thousand Buddha images fill two chambers above the river. You arrive at Luang Prabang in the late afternoon by water, which is the right way to arrive.
Laos, days 8 to 14
Day 8: Luang Prabang. The alms round at first light, briefed the night before, then a guided morning through Wat Xieng Thong, the Royal Palace Museum and the Traditional Arts and Ethnology Centre. Afternoon free after two days sitting on a boat.
Day 9: Kuang Si. The waterfall early, before the coaches, and the bear rescue centre at the entrance. Village lunch on the way back. Afternoon free.
Day 10: Luang Prabang, free. Deliberately empty. A cooking session, a weaving studio, bicycles, or nothing.
Day 11: Train to Vang Vieng. About an hour south with a transfer at each end, because both stations sit outside their towns. Afternoon on the Nam Song under the limestone.
Day 12: Vang Vieng. An optional dawn balloon, then a lagoon and a cave in the morning and kayaking in the afternoon. Or a slow day, which is also a reasonable answer.
Day 13: Train to Vientiane. An hour. Pha That Luang and Wat Si Saket in the afternoon, then COPE, which makes prosthetic limbs for people injured by unexploded ordnance and which is the most worthwhile hour in the capital. Sunset on the Mekong promenade, looking back at Thailand.
Day 14: Departure. Transfer to Vientiane airport.
What is included
Accommodation with breakfast throughout, the two-day Mekong boat with lunches aboard, the night at Pakbeng, the land border crossing with our representative meeting you on the Lao side, both Lao rail legs in reserved seats with station transfers, private air-conditioned car with English-speaking driver on every transfer and site day in both countries, licensed local guides on six days, all entrance fees on guided days, a day-by-day document with real drive times and boat departures, and a WhatsApp group with your consultant, our Thai partner and our Hanoi office for the whole trip.
What we would change, and when
- The public boat or a small one? The public slow boat is cheap, crowded and made of hard wooden benches, and it is a genuine experience. The smaller boats carry twenty or thirty people, have proper seats, a bar and a guide, and cost several times more. We quote both and we do not have a view about which is correct for you, though we do have a view about doing it on a hard bench for thirteen hours over two days.
- Reverse the direction? Upstream from Luang Prabang to Huay Xai takes longer and is less pleasant. We run this route one way for that reason.
- Short on time? Twelve days works by cutting a Chiang Mai day and a Vang Vieng day. We would not cut the boat.
- Travelling in March or April? The burning season affects both halves of this trip, and northern Thailand is often worse than northern Laos. Chiang Mai’s air quality in March is genuinely poor. We will say so and suggest different dates.
Honest notes
The two boat days are long and they are the point. Six or seven hours a day on a river with almost nothing happening is either the best part of your trip or the worst, and people generally know in advance which they are. Bring a book.
Pakbeng is a small town with limited accommodation and no reason to exist beyond the boat. The lodge we use is comfortable and the town is not charming.
The border crossing takes a morning. Formalities on two sides of a river are not fast, forms are filled by hand, and the queue is the queue. We build the day so that it does not matter, and we do not schedule anything else into it.
Two countries in fourteen days is comfortable. Three is not, and we will push back if you ask us to add Vietnam to this.
Built by Paz Prosianoy, our Southeast and Central Asia specialist, and checked by our Hanoi office before it goes out.
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