Mekong River (Slow Boat) to Laos Pak Beng and Luang Prabang.

At Chiang Khong  blog you already read about crossing Ching Khong to Huay Xai by boat and do your visa at Huay xai. Do visa only takes about 10-20 minits.  Now is the journey from Huay Xai  to Pak Beng and Luang Prabang by slow boat. Few years ago everybody was mentioning about bringing a cushion for the wooden sit in the boat. Now I can tell you the cushion sit is the same like your bus seat cushion so you don't have to worry about the seat anymore.

After you have completed your visa,   walk upriver to take a tuk tuk or walk for 1 km to the jetty for slow boat. You can take speed boat but to me I feel like taking a slow boat for safety purposes. The price for the tuk tuk is only 10,000 kip. In Laos  kips is preferred. Anyhow, Thai Baht and US dollar are readily accepted in Laos too.

Nothing will stop us if we determine to go anywhere we want.  Prepared ourselves with some knowledge by studying the map and popular tourist attractions. Be alert with certain situation we are going to face and acquire some safety knowledge. Sometimes critical experience may be beyond our control, then we got nothing to say. Nothing is more important then taking care of our passport and money,  hahaha... Without them you will be ended up in real problem because Laotians have communication problem. They are not good in English. Most of the time if you want to buy something they will show you the price with a calculator.

The above picture  is my touch and go friends. Both of them cycle round the world with their bicycles. They had already travelled for eight months on their bicycles starting from France , Iran etc...and so now they are at Laos. They 'parked' their bicycles on top of the boat. Real amazing twins. They really take their opportunity to see the world. I heard there is a family from China also doing the same thing. Woww!!! Bravo.....  

                     

Here I wish to tell you during our journey in this slow boat you can feel the super nature enviroment. It is really great and pleasant. You just spend money to buy ticket of  110,000 kip to take this cruise. I think it is worth 2 days  1 night cruise and stop at Pak Beng ovenight then start our next day journey to Luang Prabang. Real relax and calm during our travelling with this kind of cruise surrounded by natural limestone and greenery environment.

Pak Beng

This slow boat takes 6 hours to reach Pak Beng. We started the journey from Huay Xai at 11am and we reached Pak Beng at 5pm.  Many guesthouses at the Pak Beng. You can slowly look and see which one you want to stay. As soon as you arrived,  many  guest house representatives will come down to introduce you to stay, even to fetch you  to their hotels. Local kids will come down to the river bank to help you carrying your luggage but "with payment "!

At Pak Beng don't worry of no electricity. They have electricity in our hotel the whole night. Not much entertainment here but for relaxing, yes, superb! The cooling weather makes you feel really comfortable without any air-conditional unit. No need to book an air-cond room. Natural air is so much better.

Throughout the journey, you would experience rich  natural view. It is money worth spent! The next day we started our journey to Luang Prabang. We departed at 9am from Pak Beng to Luang Prabang.

During our journey from Huay Xai we saw two slow boats with tourists. The next day they tried to accommodate all two boats tourists into one boat!  So all smart tourists must be co-operative. Do not be scared of no boat to take you to Luang Prabang. If you see the seats are already full, don't board. If you board they will try to put in stools in the centre for you to sit. Be Smart like what our tourist counter friends do, just stand outside waiting for them to get another boat to take you. You  paid for your seat. Make your journey comfortable. See how many tourists were still waiting outside under the hot sun? Don't panic or rush in.  YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOO.