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

Sayaboury is also spelled as Xayaboury and both are pronounced like "Saiya boury".

Sayaboury is a surprisingly nice town and famous for the Elephant Festival usually held in February each year.

Xayaboury Province holds its annual Elephant Festival every February. In 2023 75 elephants participated in majestic processions, performances, elephant painting, elephant rides and close contact with visitors. The festival held an art exhibition featuring ethnic art and a market selling agricultural products, handicrafts and other products from Xayaboury province and neighboring countries.

A week-long program of entertainment including elephant and mahout shows, cultural performances, concerts, beauty contests and more.

Click to see our Sayaboury town map

The town is spread out over a big area and walking around can be quite slow and tiresome. Just standing by the road and waiting for public transport seldom works. Visitors can ask their guest house to call for transport to come and get them or can walk to the bus station or fresh market to find songtaew buses waiting. The Tourism Office will also help and call to arrange transport with an English-speaking driver.

A bicycle or motorbike would be great to have but we haven't seen any rental bikes. We also haven't seen motorbike taxis. Maybe this is why Sayaboury has few tourist visitors. But once you have transport the town is a delight to visit as the streets are wide and clean with little traffic and friendly locals.

Lots of fresh air and nice views of surrounding hills.

bus schedules posted on board outside Tourism Office March 2017 - can be seen even when office is closed.

International Bus between Luang Prabang and Loei, Thailand stops in Sayaboury at Thana Bus Station and passengers can board there

- the southbound Intl. Bus leaves Luang Prabang at 08:00 daily and stops in Sayaboury around 10:30 on the way to Pak Lay & Loei (arriving around 17:00)

- the northbound Intl. Bus leaves Loei at 08:00 daily and stops in Sayaboury around 14:30 on the way to Luang Prabang (arriving around 17:00)

International Buses between Luang Prabang and Nan, Thailand stop in Sayaboury at Thana Bus Station and passengers can board there. These buses go thru Hongsa and cross the Thai-Lao border at Muang Ngeun-Huay Khon checkpoints.

- one Intl. Bus leaves Luang Prabang at 08:30 daily and stops in Sayaboury around 11:00 on the way to Nan, Thailand (arriving around 18:30)

- another Intl. Bus leaves Nan at 08:00 daily and stops in Sayaboury around 15:40 on the way to Luang Prabang (arriving around 18:00)

The Sayaboury Tourism Office also has bus schedules for Pak Lay to Vientiane and for Muang Ngeun - the below are from March 2017

- the International buses also stop in Pak Lay on their route between Loei and Luang Prabang (see above info)

Transport from Muang Ngeun below (near border crossing into Thailand on the way to Nan, Thailand)

the buses between Sayaboury and Muang Ngeun probably stop in Hongsa on the way but we have not verified that yet