Travel and Transport Info for Pak Beng, Laos by Hobo Maps - - - Home

The slow boats to Luang Prabang and Houay Xay are now operating again and going every day.

The speed boats still go every day if enough passengers.

Click to see our Pak Beng Map

Travel Pak Beng
- Pak Beng is the one-night stopover place on the two-day Mekong boat trips between Luang Pabang and Huay Xay. The typical visitor to Pak Beng stays only 15 hours from 18:00 to 09:00 the next morning and the town goes thru a daily cycle of frenzy once the boats arrive to a lazy quiet feeling after they depart the next morning. The town has plenty of comfortable accommodation options. Most places have hot water and 24 hour electricity. Some offer free Wi Fi while internet service at an internet cafe is usually not available.

The area around town is quite remote and visitors who venture out of town among the steep hills are likely to get surprised reactions from the locals. A bypass road has been built to take truck traffic on Hwy. 2W above and around Pak Beng and it can be explored on foot or by bike offering nice views down to Pak Beng and the Mekong below. Unfortunately there still are no bicycles or motorbikes for rent in town.

Pak Beng images below:

Highway 2W connecting to Oudom Xay in the north is a decent paved road with good bus service and offers a nice cycling route along the Nam Beng river. Nice 2 day cycling to Oudom Xay with decent guest houses in Mouang Houn about 55 km from Pak Beng and from there it's 85 km more to Oudom Xay (also known as Mouang Xay).

Vehicles can now cross the Mekong about 10 km upriver from Pak Beng on a new bridge and Highway 2W connects to the border (at Muang Ngeun) with Thailand and on to Nan. There is a public bus connecting Pak Beng to the Thai border 40 km away at Muang Ngeun that departs at 15:00 daily from Pak Beng Bus Station (see schedule below). This 15:00 bus to Mouang Ngeun may be the bus from Oudom Xay to Moung Ngeun that leaves Oudom Xay at 12:00 with a stop in Pak Beng so the arrival and departure time in Pak Beng may vary depending on how that bus trip goes.

The slow boat & bus schedules below are from pictures taken March 2023 at govt. office in Pak Beng:

Pak Beng bus station picture below with bus to Oudom Xay waiting to depart

Buses going to Pak Beng from Muang Ngeun near Thai border - there is a 12:00 noon bus going to Pak Beng that should take about 2 hours. This is a local pickup style bus like a Thai songtaew bus.

From Oudom Xay to Pak Beng - there are 2 or 3 daily buses going to (or thru) Pak Beng. See our Oudom Xay web page for details HERE .

Slow Boat Transport from Pak Beng (Express Boats)

- Slow boats usually depart in both directions every day with the boat to Huay Xay departing at 08:30 and the one to Luang Prabang at 09:00.
- the cost for both upriver and downriver Slow Boat trips from Pak Beng is the same and as of November 2024 it was 200,000 kip for foreigners. In Pak Beng you can buy your ticket on the boat as they will come around just before departure to check for tickets. 50,000 kip extra for bicycle transport.
- upriver Slow Boat trips to Huay Xay are scheduled to depart in the morning at around 08:30. The trip takes about 9 hours with arrival in Huay Xay around 17:30-18:00.
- downriver Slow Boat trips to Luang Prabang are scheduled to depart around 09:30 from Pak Beng. The trip takes about 7 or 8 hours with arrival at the boat landing outside of Luang Prabang around 17:00.

Slow Boat Style
- the Slow Boats (Express Boats) are long and narrow family-owned boats powered by a big noisy truck engine. At the front is the captain sitting behind his big steering wheel, a long narrow passenger section is immediately behind him, then a snack bar selling drinks and cold snacks, then an enclosed western-style toilet, then the loud truck engine, then the family room & sleeping place and finally at the very end a cooking section for the family's personal use.

- Downriver boats going with the flow of the Mekong from Huay Xay to Pak Beng and Luang Prabang often carry about 4 times as many passengers as similar boats do in the other direction going against the current upriver from Luang Prabang to Huay Xay. The downstream trip is about 2 hours faster but the upriver boats depart earlier so the arrival times at Pak Beng are about the same.

Buying Tickets - better to buy single-day tickets instead of a 2 day ticket before beginning the trip since they don't make seat reservations or limit the number of passengers on these boats. At Pak Beng you can buy your ticket after getting on the boat but in Huay Xay and Luang Prabang you buy your ticket at an office near the boat landing and need to show your passport. We see no reason to buy a Slow Boat ticket in advance or from an agent as the boats are never "sold out".

Pak Beng Scramble
- There is a fear among some slow boat passengers of not being able to find a decent room for the night in Pak Beng which causes a sort of scramble on arrival to be one of the first to get off the boat with your baggage and find a room. This does have some logic to it and you might try to keep all your baggage with you near a seat at the front of the boat to be at the forefront of the scramble. The only times I've had problems finding a preferred room in Pak Beng was when a boatload of Thai visitors came earlier in the day. I still found a decent room these times but had to pay more than usual.

Speedboat Transport from Pak Beng
- Buy tickets at the Speedboat Pier in Pak Beng which is a floating platform near where the Slow Boats are docked and down a long flight of steps. If you have a group and charter the whole boat you probably can depart when you want but if you don't have your own group then you may have to wait until about 14:00 (2:00 PM) for the boat to depart as they like to group Pak Beng passengers with those arriving both Luang Prabang and Huay Xay. The trip in either direction takes about 3 hours nonstop but they stop for other passengers to disembark and at government checkpoints which adds to the time. Most of the time you can assume the boat to Huay Xay will arrive at around 17:00 or before.

There is an elephant camp across the Mekong from Pak Beng town where you may see elephants near the river in the mornings.

Mekong Map

Pak Beng street image below:

Sign images below around town taken March 2023:

Pak Beng views below from slow boat on way to Luang Prabang March 2023:

In the dry season when river levels are low we can see local people gold panning on the Mekong from Houay Xay to Luang Prabang

New Pak Beng Dam will have a sizeable lock system to allow Mekong boats to transit through the dam structure. The Houay Xay to Luang Prabang boat trips can continue.