River trips en route to Luang Prabang

Just Bob, Thanks!

How would you compare the river trips below in Northern Laos with respect to:

1. The type of scenery and ethnic minority villages and enjoyability in general:

1.1 Nam Tha River: Luang Nam Tha-Na Lae-Pak Tha or Huay Xai?

1.2 Nam Ou River: Muang Khua-Muang Ngoi Neua-Nong Khiew-Luang Prabang?

1.3 Mekong River: Huay Xai or Pak Beng-Luang Prabang?

2. Are public slow boats available, would they have bunks, how much would passage cost, and how long would it take:

2.1 Nam Tha River: Luang Nam Tha-Na Lae-Pak Tha or Huay Xai?

2.2 Nam Ou River: Muang Khua-Muang Ngoi Neua-Nong Khiew-Luang Prabang?

2.3 Mekong River: Huay Xai or Pak Beng-Luang Prabang?

Again, thanks for your help,

Will Jourdin

One of the best bunks I ever had was on a slow boat out of Muang Khua - 'twas was made of a dozen 100 kilo bags of rice. This stacked on top of a load of fresh-hewn bards. Smelled so good. Me in my sunglasses, hat, warm beer Lao... That was a cruise.

Mekong is big and wide, or narrow and deep and fast. Nam Ou and Nm Tha are narrow and faster flowing - never more than a couple dozen or so meters across. My experience on the Nam Ou have been wonderful. Traveled Huay Xai to Xieng Kok on speed boat - it was wild!

Boats are expensive in comparison to bus. Speedboat can cost $150 total for 4-6 people for a 2+ hour run. Cost is same for slow boat but ts divvied among 20 or more people (thus $8-10 each). Slow boat will take 6-7 hours however.

My wife and I about two years ago took the slow boat from Huay Xai to Luang Prabang, with an overnight hotel stop in PakBeng. The evening before we went we bought our boat tickets from our guesthouse for US$19 per person. The boat was very basic, with hard wooden benches. Tthe scenery OK with greenery and occasional small houses. The guest house we stayed at in PakBeng was the pits. We are really glad we went, a really unforgetable experience. For details of our trip see the "Thailand & Laos" section of Our Travel Journals: www.evcal.org</a>

1.2 far better than 1.3. not done 1.1 before but should also be more interesting than 1.3, according to a couple who did 1.1 in the rainy season...hafta overnight in village(s) along the way (don't expect guesthouses) so get to see more of villages compared to 1.2 & 1.3 (overnight in small towns with guesthouses, running water & electricity).

2.1 & 2.2 small rivers = small boats, wide enough for 2 Lao-sized adults to sit comfortably side by side. create bunk out of fellow passengers' cargo like #1 did.

2.3 Luang Prabang-Pak Beng & Pak Beng-Huay Xai sectors each 95,000kip, each about a day. stayed in a nice clean guesthouse in Pak Beng.

Just did 1.2 (2nd part of it anyway) today and it was amazing, what a views!!

Muang Khua-Muang Ngoi Neua was about 80000 kip and is the most beautiful (specially the last part)
and Muang Ngoi Neua-Nong Khiew-Luang Prabang was about 110000 combined.
It might be tricky to find enough travelers to down the prices.

Even with the not so great weather we had it was an amazing trip and i am so glad i did this in stead of Huay Xai or Pak Beng-Luang Prabang.
Just about everybody i met who did this route was complaining about it.

B.

Beqbie,

Did you have any problem organizing a boat from Muang Khua to Nong Kiau or were there plenty of others wanting to do same? What day did you do this segment? Any details you can give would be appreciated as I plan to head down the same route in Mid November.

MG

And if you're going to go from Muang Khua to Luang Prabang by boat, you should definitely do it in segments, stopping at Moung Ngoi and Nong Khiaw before continuing on to Luang Prabang. As Beqbie posted, just half an hour north of Moung Ngoi where mountains start to from a gorge area is the most beautiful stretch down all the way to Nong Khiaw.

<blockquote>Quote
<hr>would they have bunks<hr></blockquote>
Sorry to be rude but roflao ;-)) In short the answer is..... no!!! Do a google image search and you might have a better idea on the type of boat you will be travelling on.

Montana Guy: We arriver in Muang Khua in the evening and we were with 2. The next morning (02/11) we asked around and in an hour we had a group of 6 people wanting to do the same trip.
But i did hear some people didnt have that much luck and were 'stuck' there for 3 days (except if you have enough money, then you can get everything done)

Make sure you bring something soft to sit on in any case :)

B.

Were they selling seat cushions at the boat dock like in Huayxai?

Grab a rice bag from anywhere and fill it with hay or grass or even sand. Voila! Seat cushion.

Actually the ride was nice with no cushions. But the ticket man wanted 3 of us to take a chartered boat from Muang Khua so 2 took the bus and I got a free ride with a GErman couple who had a private tour with boat. The town lost $30.

Prices are still done in price-per-boat-divided-by-number-of-passengers.

Laung Prabang to Nong Khiaw still needs at least 8 pax to go, but on this leg there are usually enough people that a boat goes each day - or sometimes even two. Same goes on from Nong Khiaw to Muang Ngoi wich is becoming more and more popular. Past Muang Ngoi to Muang Khua and Phongsaly it starts getting more tricky to get a larger group together, but things should improve at least up to Muang Khua with the opening of the Lao-Viet border at Dien Bien Phu.
*****