Taking The Slow Boat To Laos: Drugs, Jail, and a Mutiny!

Wow, that actually sounds pretty horrible. If you’d be willing to dish out 4800 baht ($160) for a more comfortable trip, consider flying. My boyfriend was getting short on time during his trip this summer and he decided that the 45min flight was well worth the cost (~$150) over spending 3 days in transit. I’m of the same mind.

Unless I had oodles of time and some sort of deluxe/luxury package I doubt I’d ever take the slow boat to Laos.

Omg! what a terrible trip. Even though its a way of job creation, there is dishonesty that will definitely cost both Captains and Locals. Visitors will avoid being dropped 10 km outside the city thus choosing other safe modes of transport. Of course captains and the locals will loose.

Oh wow. Well I hate that you had such a negative experience. I’ve actually never heard of the slow boat to Laos. But thanks for sharing your experience and tips.

I had no idea that last stop was a scam! I remember thinking how strange it was that we were dropped off so far from Luang Prabang, and then throwing a fit about the couple of bucks we had to pay for the taxi into town!

It’s not the fact that it’s $2.50, but it’s the relative price and the level of dishonesty. After traveling in SE Asia, I’m not even surprised to hear that it was a scam…which is really unfortunate. The state of tourism in that region is pretty poor.

I’m sorry that you didn’t have the best experience. 🙁 Thanks for letting us know what to look out for. Better luck next time!

Gosh, that sounds like an awful boat ride! I definitely agree with you about the principle of it all though, irrelevant of whether or not the cost of an extra ride into town is low to a Westerner or not.

Sorry to hear your trip wasn’t as great as you’d hoped, will definitely bare this tips in mind when I’m in SE Asia.

I was gonna take the same route in Jan 2010, but the Mekong was very low at that time; so I nixed the trip. I had heard of some nightmare trips on Trip advisor, so I figured my time was better spent in Luang Prabang touring the temples. I was in LP back in 1972 … but there was a very hot war in progress; so I had to get my tourist derriere out of there ASAPTook me 38 years to get back there.

I’m with you on the $2.50, and I am okay with paying higher prices than the locals, because yes, it’s not as much money relative to my income. And I’m a visitor in their country, using their roads and services and probably contributing in some way to environmental degradation as much as I try not to. But I hate being targeted as a rich westerner with an endless stream of money who should just pay up without question, and especially for things I’ve already paid for. Sometimes I just do it and sometimes I try to bargain, but it always feels crappy, because there isn’t an endless stream of money flowing into my bank account.

Great story, Audrey. I love how you write about these weird and crazy situations and make us all feel your pain, but laugh along with you too. The drug-obsessed Aussie girl is hilarious! We’ve all met her before!

Your explanation is precisely how I feel when these things happen to me. I find myself fighting for my rights as a human being and “equal” with the locals, and then in the same moment I find myself understanding why they want my $2.50 and how I am so easily able to part with it. It’s not the money, as you say, but it’s the principle that we are told false realities, and it never feels good to be lied to. Although, lately I feel like I have become a lot better at just accepting people’s weird justifications for things that seem to be not quite logical, like that time in Bangkok when it was “Buddha day” so the temple I wanted to visit was closed… (exactly WHY would a temple close on Buddha day?? wouldn’t it be decorated and full of celebrations?). At some point, if it becomes clear that my argument isn’t getting me anywhere, it becomes easier for everyone just to cough up the $2.50 and be done with it. Thanks for sharing your horrors with us Audrey!

Sounds great! Yeah, sure, uncomfortable, a bit of bribery, things not as they were described, a mutiny! Sure, you could have flown and had a completely comfortable, quick trip but look at the memories you would have missed!

Give me the slow boat any day.

Haha, great reading this! Here’s my account from December 2014, VERY similar!

TRIP TO LUANG PRABANG OVER RIVER MEKONG – hello walking wallet!

Overall, this was fun. Obviously, they cheap out on every part of the trip and pocket the maximum amount of money for themselves, and any interaction with people organising the trip will no doubt drive you a bit insane, but you do get to meet other nice travellers that you’ll keep seeing throughout the Laos tourist trail, see the beautiful scenery of the river Mekong, and it gets you from A to B. This is a description for the more expensive all-inclusive tour, including: bus rides, boat fare, 2 nights accommodation (Chiang Kong), 1 dinner, 2 breakfasts, 2 lunches.

FIRST DAY
There’s the obligatory stop at some overpriced, underwhelming food place along the way, though if you eat beforehand you won’t be hungry by this point. The first night is spent in a DIVE on the Thai boarder town of Chiang Kong, extremely cheap & basic bunker style accommodation (I think it was a former prison), we were 3 in a room and despite the beds being rock-hard, we slept fine. Food portions there are MEASLY; you’ll have to ask for seconds like Oliver Twist (they had some rice & veg left over which they graciously gave us). Breakfast was the same: a single, sad egg on a cheapo slice of white bread. Must have cost them 5cents per person though I’m sure they charge the equivalent of $5.

SECOND DAY
The guy “in charge” will get everyone to queue up for money exchange before bundling you all into buses to the boarder – don’t give him a cent if you can help it, he’s full of BS (e.g. you’ll be charged at least $5 every time you withdraw from an ATM in LAOS – not the case, it’s about $1.50). Also, just get your dollars ahead of time to pay for your LAOS visa, the less you have to deal with last minute middle men the better for your stress levels.
At the boarder, after the boring form-filling and handing over money to enter the country, some other clown will give you a tedious speech along the lines of “even though it’s true that westerners do have a lot of money, we don’t want you to feel cheated here in our beautiful country, because we want you to keep coming back. Otherwise you might go off & tell your friends not to come to Laos, and we will have no more tourists. So be aware of people who want to cheat you. Some villagers will pretend to be officials and ask you for your passport and demand a large sum of money before they return it. Do not give them your passport.” After listening to this condescending drivel repeated 4 or 5 times in slight variations, those passengers who have not yet booked a room in the Laos village the same night will be asked to book. Then there’s a short drive to the riverside where the boats are, and as the minivan’s doors open, guess who’s there waiting to greet you?? The grinning face of a local holding a flimsy little plastic bag in your direction, demanding that you place your PASSPORT in it!!! Of course you’ll ignore him and tell him you’re not an idiot, this is not the boarder so he doesn’t need to see your passport. Who is he anyway? You’re just here waiting for the other tourists to arrive before you can board the boat!
The other tourists finally arrive and buy the overpriced sandwiches at this last stop before the 8 hour boat ride (we bought our food the night before in the 7/11 in the Thai boarder town – cheaper that way.) Meanwhile, more locals swarm around the tourists demanding passports, with no explanation. Obviously no one gave their passports, so the locals got frustrated. But the clown from the boarder emerged from a car and came to the rescue, the guy who said not to give passports to random strangers, and told us all “hey, it’s OK, give your passports to these people who need them to organise your boat ride”.
Confused and bewildered, everyone handed them over and watched as the strange men underwent their administrative task with the greatest seriousness and pride. They put the passports in the plastic bags. Sat down at a table. Took out one passport at a time, put a random boat ticket in it with no assigned seat number, badly pronounced the passport holder’s name, not ticking it off any list, and handed the passports back to the person, who all had to stand there like naughty school children to listen out for their names. I looked around for a hidden camera to see if this was some kind of highly sophisticated Laotian comedy show, but there was nothing. It was just a tragic exercise in power and laughable excuse for time wasting. At the end, one of the ‘officials’ turned to us and said ‘see, that’s why we needed your passports’. We asked if they couldn’t simply have handed out boat tickets. He looked at us blankly. We then went down to the boat, and got on it – and no one asked to see a single boat ticket.
Highlight was finally on the horizon: the 8 hour trip to the village was great. We loved it because we love boats & views of mountains, but some did find it a bit long & boring. Overnight stop was interesting, village has decent restaurants – there was no electricity at first but after a couple hours you could turn the light on. Be aware that if you’re a single traveller, you’ll be placed with someone else in a double room, this place didn’t have dorms.

THIRD DAY
Next day, you could choose your breakfast and packed lunch: we got egg sandwiches for each, since that was the most filling option. They must have cheaped out with the boats, because they squeezed all the tourists from 2 boats onto 1, and this one didn’t have tables with 4 chairs around them, just rows of chairs facing in the same direction, so harder for people to play cards and put their beers / food anywhere. We didn’t care as, again, we sat right at the front where all the chairs face each other in a semi circle, which we liked as you can have privacy chatting as a couple, or have group convos with everyone. Since the boat was so overly full, some poor tourists had to sit right in the back section by the ridiculously loud engine where you can’t hear yourself think, nevermind anyone else talk. On the way to Luang Prabang, the boat must have stopped 6 times to pick up locals, who sat in the aisles on the floor, in the back by the engine, maybe on the rooftop, who knows where they could manage to squeeze them in?! Some came on with chickens, a puppy, a live fish that ended up in a bucket by the loo! Many tourists felt peeved at how packed the boat was getting, and going to the toilet without stepping over someone’s hand or foot required athletic balance, but we found it fascinating to stop at the villages and pick up locals, plus the people we were with were fun & turned it all into a joke – would we sink? Who knew! Another 8 hour boat ride was a bit much for some, but we found the views even more breath-taking than the 1st day.
Then, the end was in sight, and just as we were about to reach our destination, the one we each paid $50 of our hard-earned money to get to, our $50 that cut a hole in our backpacker recession money, the cash we put aside even though there’s a £20,000 student loan debt repayments waiting for us back home and only shit temporary contract jobs, at the end of 16 hours on a boat when we were like sailors who have finally spotted the lighthouse, we were confronted with the biggest scam yet: the “I-can’t-drive-you-into-town-you’ll-have-to-make-your-own-way-there-oh-look-some-tuk-tuk-driver-has-miraculously-appeared-over-there-how-lucky-for-you” scam. Since a few of us had GPS on our smartphones, we knew this wasn’t Luang Prabang like they claimed it was, so we demanded they bring us the remaining 8km to the city we’d paid to get to. After all, they were bringing the local Laotians there after we were all forced to get off, so why not us, we paid 5 times more!!! So about 40 of us waited for an hour on the boat, having experienced this scam all over Thailand and SE Asia and by now feeling sore about it, and demanded they take us. The locals sat outside the boat, waiting for us to get out so they could carry on. The boat driver saw that we understood the locals waiting was proof that they were carrying on to Luang Prabang, so told them to wait further away, out of sight. It was such a pathetic little battle of wills. But they didn’t give in and obviously had more time to waste than we did, so an hour later, after the sun had gone down, we all gave up, walked up the hill in defeat and found their tuk tuk office at the top where we each paid the couple dollars like the good little walking wallets that we were told to be. So instead of the scenic, dramatic entry to the city by the river, 10 of us squeezed onto a tuk tuk and were driven down industrial back streets with dust forcing our eyes closed most of the way, and some fellow passengers passively concluding that ‘after all, it’s only a couple bucks’ (but $15 profit for a 10 minute drive equates to more than what most cab drivers make in the west, just food for thought.) But of course, it’s not the money, it’s the principle… do we have to be treated like gullible walking wallets all the time? I guess so.