How to get from Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang in 2022

Laos is a neighbouring country of Thailand and boarders the East side. There are many different ways to get from Thailand to Laos, however after the pandemic it has got increasingly harder.

For starters we were entering Laos on the 5^th of July 2022 and all slow boats were cancelled. We don’t know for sure why this is, as we had heard they were running a couple of months ago, but maybe they weren’t getting enough passengers in low season. A lot of different sleeper buses were also not running anymore. Again, we don’t know for sure why, but my guess is either they were unable to stay afloat during covid or they decide not to run in low season as it isn’t worth it for them. This meant it was not an easy ride for us to get to Laos from Thailand. We were unable to find any helpful information on the internet and even at bus stations. No one seemed to know the best route or bus to take.

Here are the different ways we heard travellers make the journey to Luang Prabang from Thailand in 20222, including what we decided to do, which spoiler alert, we 100% do not recommend!

Train

From the North of Laos

Now this way is possibly a bit more complicated than others and will only really work if you aren’t on a time constraint because it involves an overnight stay in the north of Laos before you are able to get the train down to Luang Prabang.

Some of the travellers that we met in Luang Prabang told us that they got a day or sleeper bus from Chiang Rai to Luanag Namtha. You are also able to get a bus twice daily from Huay Xai that takes you to Luang Namtha too, which I believe takes less than 6 hours. Here they usually stayed at least one night, although do be aware that this area is quite remote and not touristy at all. Then from there you can catch a high-speed train from the neighbouring town Boten that takes you all the way to Luang Prabang. Those that we met that decided to take this journey said that the train is very comfortable and clean.

From Bangkok

I believe another way to get to Laos is to get the train from Bangkok, however this arrives in Vientiane, Laos’ capital. You can then catch the new high-speed train up to Luang Prabang.

Sleeper bus

Another way we heard that travellers got from Thailand to Laos is via sleeper bus. However, we personally were not able to find this option. I believe the best thing to do is to head to the bus station in Chiang Mai and ask if they have any sleeper buses going directly from there. We have also heard that you are actually able to get a sleeper bus from the boarder at Huay Xai, however there is no where to buy tickets online, so you need to get to the town and try and find a company that can take you. Be wary of this option as we have had some people say they had a great experience with this and their bus was quite empty and some say that they had to share the tiny beds on board with up to two other people, sometimes strangers!

Van from the boarder (how we did it)

As we couldn’t find any information online and the people at the bus stations weren’t super helpful, we decided to gradually get closer to the boarder of Thailand and Laos and figure it out from there. From Chiang Mai, we got a bus to Chiang Rai by just buying a ticket at the bus station. We believe there are multiple buses a day, but always try and get to the bus station as early as possible, so that you don’t miss the last one. We stayed the night in Chiang Rai and after trying our hardest to find some sort of direct sleeper bus, gave up and just hoped on a bus to Chiang Khong, a town that boarders Laos. These are very easy to catch, with many different busses available and one leaving every 30 – 45 minutes. Do be aware though, these buses are local buses, very basic, with no air con and uncomfortable seats. However, it was incredibly cheap at just 40 baht per person and only took 2 hours in total.

Once at the boarder we crossed over into Laos and grabbed a tuk tuk with three other tourists we met on the journey and went to the bus station. We arrived there at about 4:45pm. There was a ‘sleeper’ van (at least that is how it was advertised) that was leaving at 5:30 that we all decided to catch, in interest of just getting to Luang Prabang as quickly as possible, however I really don’t recommend you do this, and we regret jumping on.

The bus was incredibly full and even had seats that pull out on the isle bit, meaning there is absolutely no space on the van at all and when it stopped at rest stations you have to climb over chairs to get out. All of our luggage went on the roof, which was covered with tarpaulin but that didn’t stop it from getting wet, as it rained most the way. The journey was meant to be 15 hours, but in the end was 18.5 hours. This was because of the many random stops we did for people getting off and them having to search for their luggage on the roof. It was also because we broke down twice. Yes, you heard that right. After driving over a massive pothole at a speed, our driver stopped the van, grabbed his tools and went under the van. It is hard for us to tell you what happened both times we broke down because we were never informed, and we couldn’t ask because he didn’t speak English. The driver also decided that at 5am, when we were just 1.5 hours away from Luang Prabang and 13 hours into our journey that he would take a 3-hour nap, so he pulled over at the side of the road in the middle of no where to sleep in his driver seat. He wouldn’t wake up no matter how much noise everyone on the bus was making. Even the locals were trying to wake him up. The Driver also decided to play extremely loud music throughout the night even though he knew people were trying to sleep. There was also only two official rest breaks on this 18.5 hour journey. One a couple of hours in where we could grab some dinner and another at the very end of the journey when everyone would have just preferred to carry on to get their quicker. However, the bus stopped at points every hour in the middle of nowhere to either drop people off or for the driver to have a cigarette so there were lots of opportunities to have a ‘nature wee’. We were meant to get into Luang Prabang at 8am, but actually arrived at 12pm. Honestly avoid this if possible.

I wish we had just stayed the night at the boarder and tried to find a more comfortable sleeper bus to get on.

Fly

The easy option. If you have enough money, then I highly suggest you fly from Thailand to Laos. There are flights daily from Chiang Mai, Bangkok and other locations that will only take you a couple of hours to get there. It will save you a lot of time and energy!