Backpacking Huay Xai
Huay Xai is where Laos begins. You cross the Friendship Bridge from Chiang Khong in Thailand, get your visa stamped, and find yourself in a small town on the bank of the Mekong where nothing much happens and nobody minds.
Most people are here for one night, because the slow boat to Luang Prabang leaves at half seven in the morning and that is the whole point of the town. A few dozen travellers all with the same plan, the same ticket and the same three cafes overlooking the river.
The reason to stay longer is the Gibbon Experience: two or three days in the Bokeo Nature Reserve sleeping in treehouses and moving between ridges on ziplines. That is not a stopover, that is one of the best things in Laos, and it starts here.
Why Huay Xai is popular with backpackers
- The start of the slow boat, two days down the Mekong
- The Gibbon Experience: treehouses, ziplines and gibbons at dawn
- The easiest border crossing between Thailand and Laos
- A first evening in Laos, at Lao prices, watching the river
- Beds from €5 and a town small enough to walk across
- Everyone here is doing the same thing tomorrow, so you have a group by dinner
Best time to visit Huay Xai
Huay Xai sits on the Mekong directly opposite Thailand. For most people it is a stopover, but it is also the base for the Gibbon Experience, and that changes what the seasons mean.
The Gibbon Experience runs all year, but in the rainy season the walk in to the treehouses is a mud bath. If those are your months, bring shoes with actual grip and accept that you will arrive filthy.
Backpacker budget: around €18 a day
- €5hostel bed
- €2local meal
- €1beer
- €2tuk-tuk ride
Guide prices from our own days in Huay Xai. Add a tour or a night out and it climbs fast.
Best hostels in Huay Xai
The town has about six places to sleep and they are all within ten minutes of each other. Pick one near the pier: the boat leaves early and you will not want a taxi at half six.
5 Minutes to Slow Boat Pier Hostel
The name does the work. Five minutes from where the boat goes from, sociable, and full of people who will be sitting on the same wooden bench as you tomorrow morning.
Over the Moon
Cheap, central and friendly, with the highest score in town off a small number of reviews. Dorms, wifi, and a crowd all heading the same way.
Also worth knowing: Little Hostel is a small family-run place that does not sell through the booking sites, and the owners are the ones who will sort your slow boat ticket, your bus or your border questions. Walk in and ask.
Best things to do in Huay Xai
The Gibbon Experience
The reason a lot of people give Huay Xai three days instead of one. Two hours up into the Bokeo Nature Reserve, then two or three days living in treehouses thirty to forty metres up, moving between them on ziplines that run for hundreds of metres across the valley.
You get to your bed by zipline. Food arrives by zipline. There is no other way in. At first light the black-crested gibbons start calling across the forest, which is what the whole conservation project exists for, and there is a decent chance of hearing them from your hammock.
It is the most expensive single thing on this whole route and it is the one people least regret. Book it before you arrive in Laos, not on the day.
The slow boat down the Mekong
Two days on a long wooden boat from Huay Xai to Luang Prabang, with an overnight stop at Pakbeng halfway. Six hours a day on the water, hills on both sides, buffalo on the sandbanks, children waving from villages you cannot reach by road.
It is not comfortable and it is not fast. It is also one of the great journeys in Southeast Asia, and it costs about thirty euros.
Tickets are sold at the pier in the morning and most people buy them there. If you would rather have it settled before you arrive, the same two-day route is bookable online with the transfers at both ends included.
Wat Chom Khao Manilat
The temple on the hill above town, reached by a long flight of steps, with a teak hall and a view straight down onto the Mekong and across into Thailand. Free, quiet, and the one thing in Huay Xai that is actually old.
Sunset over the Mekong
Your first evening in Laos, and the town does exactly one thing well: a row of simple places along the bank where you sit with a Beerlao and watch the sun go down behind the hills of Thailand on the other side. About a euro, and a good way to meet the people you will be on a boat with tomorrow.
The night market
A small evening market by the river: grilled meat on sticks, sticky rice, papaya salad and fruit shakes, at Lao prices rather than Thai ones. It is the first time on the trip that dinner costs under two euros without you looking for it.
Best area for backpackers
Near the slow boat pier
Huay Xai is one long street along the river, so this is not much of a decision. Stay at the pier end of it: the boat leaves early, the walk is five minutes, and everyone else doing the same trip is staying there too.
The border end is quieter and cheaper and puts twenty minutes and a tuk-tuk between you and a boat that does not wait.
Good to know about this area
- Walking distance to the slow boat pier, which matters at 6.30
- Cheap dorms, and a crowd all heading the same way tomorrow
- Cafes along the river with the sunset in them
- The night market by the river, for dinner and for boat supplies
- ATMs in town, but take cash out before you get on the boat
- The Gibbon Experience office is here too, for the briefing
How to plan your days in Huay Xai
One night for most people, three if you add the Gibbon Experience. Pick how long you have.
Arrive and cross. The crossing from Chiang Khong is straightforward. Walk the town, buy your slow boat ticket at the official office, and climb up to Wat Chom Khao Manilat above the river.
Tonight: eat looking at the Mekong, with the lights of Thailand on the far bank.
Gibbon Experience, day one. Two hours by road, then into the jungle: treehouse to treehouse on ziplines hundreds of metres long. You sleep thirty metres up with no walls.
Tonight: in the treehouse, with nothing but the forest around you.
Gibbon Experience, day two. Up before light to hear the gibbons calling, then another morning on the ziplines before you walk back out to the road.
Tonight: back in Huay Xai, ready for the boat in the morning.
Food and drink in Huay Xai
It is a border town and the food is what you would expect: a handful of places along the main street and a market by the river. It is cheap, it is good enough, and it is your introduction to sticky rice.
The one thing to get right here is provisions. Two days on a boat is longer than it sounds, and what they sell on board is expensive and runs out. Buy two baguettes, water, fruit and something to snack on before you get on.
Stock up before the slow boat: two baguettes, water, fruit and snacks. Two days on the river is longer than it sounds.
Getting there and onward
Huay Xai is really two things: a border crossing with Thailand and a pier where a boat leaves once a day.
The border. The Friendship Bridge connects Huay Xai with Chiang Khong in Thailand. You get your visa on arrival here, in cash and preferably in clean US dollars, and the whole thing takes one to two hours depending on the queue.
The slow boat. Two days to Luang Prabang, with a night in Pakbeng. There is also a speedboat that does it in a day, and we would not get in it: see below.
Onward by road. Buses run to Luang Namtha and Oudomxay, which is faster than the boat and misses the entire point of the Mekong.
- Slow boatLuang Prabang in 2 days, via Pakbeng
- The borderFriendship Bridge to Chiang Khong
- BusLuang Namtha 4 hrs · Oudomxay 6 hrs
- Gibbon Experience2 or 3 days, transport included
- SpeedboatLuang Prabang in a day. See the safety note
Staying safe in Huay Xai
A quiet border town with no real crime problem. What needs attention is the speedboat, the ziplines and the small business of crossing a border.
- Bring enough US dollars in cash for the visa. They do not take cards at the border
- Take a cushion or a jacket on the slow boat. The benches are wooden and it is six hours
- Have your harness checked at every single zipline on the Gibbon Experience
- Buy your slow boat ticket at the official office, not from someone who approached you
- Take the speedboat. It does 60 km an hour down a river full of rocks, and people have died on it
- Change money at the border itself. The rate there is always worse
- Get on that speedboat without a helmet and a life jacket if you take it anyway
- Assume the slow boat leaves on time. Departure here is a suggestion
Rebels on the Road tip
Do the Gibbon Experience first and the slow boat second, in that order, and you have the best possible opening week in Laos: three days in a treehouse with your heart going, then two days on a wooden bench watching a river go past at walking pace. Adrenaline, then nothing at all. Half the people who do it that way say the second half was the better one, which is not what they expected when they booked.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a visa for Laos at Huay Xai?
Yes, on thirteen of the fourteen passports on our visa page. A Swiss passport gets up to 15 days without one. You can apply for the e-visa in advance or get a visa on arrival right here at the bridge. Take clean US dollars in cash and a passport photo.
Is there an ATM in Huay Xai?
Yes, several. Take cash out before you get on the slow boat though: Pakbeng, where you stop overnight, has very little and what it does have is unreliable. What withdrawing costs and which card saves you money is on our travel cards page.
When does the slow boat leave?
Early in the morning, and once a day. That is why almost everybody sleeps near the pier and why nobody plans anything for that evening.
Should I book the Gibbon Experience in advance?
Yes. There are only so many treehouses and in high season they go weeks ahead. Book before you cross the border, not when you arrive.
How long does the border crossing take?
One to two hours from Chiang Khong, depending on the queue. Bus to the bridge, stamp out of Thailand, shuttle across, visa and stamp into Laos, tuk-tuk into town.
Is Huay Xai worth more than one night?
Only for the Gibbon Experience, and that is worth three. Otherwise it is a pleasant first evening in Laos and an early start, and there is no shame in treating it as exactly that.
Slow boat or fly to Luang Prabang?
Take the boat. The flight saves you two days and costs you the best thing about arriving in Laos. If you genuinely cannot spare the time, fly rather than take the speedboat.
