Skip to main content

Slow Boat - Pak Beng - Slow Boat

I crossed over the from Thailand at the town of Huay Xai which is where I went and did the Gibbon Experience.

From Huay Xai you can either get to Luang Prabang by bus or by slow boat. Obviously I didnt want to spend 12 hours on a bus so I decided to take the slow boat which takes 2 days and you spend a night in Pak Beng. The whole things costs $30.

All the stuff that we read online said that the slow boat is supposed to be really uncomfortable and you should bring a pillow to sit on. Also that there was no food or water on the boat so you have to stock up. Once we got our ticket and climbed on the boat we thought that we may have gotten on the wrong one. It was really big and lot of space. The seats were old van seats so actually pretty comfy and some of them actually had tables in between them. There was even a little bar in the back that sold chips, sandwiches and beer.

The boat is made for about 70 people and then they add seats to fit another 30. After that a group of about 15 people came down to the boat launch but the people on the boat refused to let any more people on.

The boat ride was super chill, and there was lots of nice scenery, a couple times it started to rain so we had to use the orange curtains to block it out.

We stopped for the night in Pak Beng which was pretty much just like Huay Xai with a  lot of sandwich stands and whiskey. There was a lot more drinking in this town though and only one bar so it ended up that i was stuck in the room with paper thin walls when all the people came back from the bar.
I did end up going out for dinner and meeting 4 Canadians, 2 from Coquitlam actually.

The second day of the boat was about the same but a different boat, the seats werent as nice and there was no tables but it was still better than we had expected it to be. But the weather was really nice and the scenery was really nice.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Bali - Ubud and Kuta

Bali is beautiful I wish that we could have spent more time there but we ended up getting stuck on gili. To make up we spent 3 nights in a place called Ubud and did a day tour where we saw soooo much. We saw a traditional Balinese dancing. it was really cool cause there was no instruments. The men who were seated all around chanted and made a whole bunch of different sounds it sounded like there was music coming from all around you. They also made the setting by changing how they were sitting and moving around. at one point they turned into a snake that was transformed from an arrow that was shot by the evil king. afterword there was a man who was dressed as a horse danced around on burning coconut husks. i didnt really understand the reasoning but it was impressive all the same. We went to a bunch of different temples which were all very intricate. Harvested some rice with some old ladies who tried to charge me for it after. The scaffoldin

Chiang Mai to Huay Xai

I've decided that I'm done with Thailand for now. From the hostel we signed up for a mini van to take us to Chiang Kong, the border town for Laos, and see what we could get up to there. We lucked out on the van and got the seats right at the front so we got a whole bunch of leg room. So it was Nisha, Selena, & I and then the rest of the van was filled with 8 other guys from the UK and the driver. This was one of the best road travel trips I have had so far. The driver let one of the guys plug in his ipod so we were listening to more western tunes and we had the most random conversations the whole time. Along the way the first rest stop we went to was part of a cashew nut factory. I was really surprised how big the fruit was and how small the nut you got was. Inside there was a huge room with samples of all different flavours of cashew nuts and of course i tried them all and didnt buy anything. The next stop we made was at the white temple. More in the next blog post.

Pai - Updated with pictures

I like Pai. (pronounced "bpai", say the b and the p together) Its a quiet little town, not very big, which is good cause I seem to get lost here a lot. It's a really interesting dynamic here. Everyone is super chill. all the locals just mozy around or hangout at their shops. There are lots of westerners (hippies) that seem to have just moved here. And then there are the tourists. Only the good ones though, none of the people who are just in Thailand to party (everyone in Bangkok). About every other store/stand that you see here is a T-shirt shop. They all have various shirts saying things like "Love is Pai" and "762 turns to Pai". Basically everything here celebrates that you made it to and are in Pai. All the restaurants and guesthouses have "Pai" in their name. "Pai Country" "Pai Love" "Pai Cabana". its really fun and everyone here jokes around. There's all the cheap hostels in the city but then in