.png)
RTW Trip Day #49: The Shompoo Cruise Slow Boat (Day 2) and Overland Border Crossing to Chiang Khong
- andrewsco3
- Nov 17
- 3 min read
Updated: Nov 18
16 November 2025
Steps: 5,714
The second day of our Shompoo Cruise was an even earlier start than the first day – we had to be at the hotel reception at 6.30 am!
At least there are lots of places to relax on the boat, and Jessica fell asleep again, and didn’t stir until we arrived at our first stop at 9.30am.
Ban Paksith Village
We stopped to stretch our legs at a local village called Ban Paksith, where we were shown around their village.
I always feel a little awkward when doing this type of thing, but it was a good experience for the girls though, especially when they got to go into the school and see where the kids learn.
I wish we had a better idea of what the visit would have been like, as we would have brought some small school supplies, candies, or maybe even a soccer ball to give to the kids in the village.
Back on the boat
When we arrived back on the boat we were served a butterfly pea tea which is basically a butterfly pea flower in a glass with hot water added. The flower turned the water blue and then we added some lemon juice and sugar. Apparently it’s good for the ageing process so I gave it a go!
For lunch we had another buffet meal. Today they served pork sausage on lemongrass skewers, a chicken curry, fish stir fry with ginger, a green bean stir fry and an aubergine dish. It was even better than yesterday as the food was fantastic!
For the next four hours we relaxed on the boat. Jess did some journal writing finally, Evelyn listened to the Yoto player and they finished the next few chapters of the Hobbit audiobook that Uncle Michael is recording.
At around 4pm we reached our departure point just past the Friendship Bridge that connects the Laos and Thailand borders. It was time to leave the boat and we said goodbye to our wonderful guide who was genuinely fantastic.
Overland Border Crossing (Houayxay to Chiang Khong)
After we got off the boat we took a short minibus ride from our boat to the Laos border, where we quickly had our passports stamped which cost 20k Kip per person.
We then had a moment of panic when we realised that Evelyn had left her glasses at the Sanctuary Hotel in Pak Beng. Not ideal at all and now we need to figure out what to do for the rest of the trip.
After passing through the Lao immigration, we boarded another minibus that took us across the Lao-Thai Friendship Bridge to Thai immigration and the Chiang Khong border crossing, which also cost 20k Kip per person.
We hadn’t pre arranged transport from Chiang Khong to Chiang Rai as all of the private transportation on sites like 12Go seemed really expensive. For individual travellers it would be a great option, but as tickets were sold per person, it would have been around 2800 THB for our family of four, so we figured we’d wing it!
As we exited immigration a lady was directing people in the right direction and she asked where we were going as we obviously looked a little lost!
We had tried to order a Grab taxi but it didn’t see to work in Chiang Khong.
The lady said that Grab did not work in Chiang Khong but her son could take us in a mini bus to Chiang Rai and she drove us on a tuk tuk into town to meet him. The ride cost 1800 THB for the four of us so we saved around 1000 THB this way and we were glad we did not pre book.
It took around 90 minutes to reach our hotel which is another place we booked using credit card points.
The restaurant at the hotel was quite expensive so we walked down the street to a small to the first place we could find, but it wasn't anything special and seemed more geared towards Chinese tourists.
Hopefully our Thai food adventure starts tomorrow.
Previous Day #48: Shompoo Cruise Slow Boat (Day 1)
Comments