Southeast Asian boat journeys
Few better ways to spend a day than comfortably ensconced on a boat watching the riverside sights and goings-on pass by, and few better places to do it than amid the wonderful landscapes and vibrant local life of Southeast Asia, so here’s a brief rundown on some of our personal favourite Southeast Asian boat journeys.
Note, as the title implies, we’re sticking to journeys as much as possible, so travelling by boat from A to B, rather than a circular boat tour of a lake, for instance or a short transfer from the mainland to an offshore island. Neither will you see any of the longer cruises that you may come across on certain sections of the Mekong, for example. The former don’t really count as proper journeys and, in our opinion, most of the latter are rather dull and we don’t include any on our tours. Yes, some of the boats are very nice, but invariably, the scenery doesn’t vary sufficiently to warrant spending an entire week on a Mekong cruise, and several hours are usually more than enough. (You can have too much of a good thing!)
Cambodia boat journeys
Since we’re listing our Southeast Asian boat journeys in alphabetical order of destinations, we find ourselves placing our favourite first. That is, of course, the fabulous one-day journey across the Tonle Sap Lake and up the Sangkar River from Siem Reap to Battambang in western Cambodia.
Siem Reap to Battambang, Sangkar River
We’ve already described this awesome trip in several earlier posts, so we won’t go into the details again, but suffice to say, the floating villages are remarkable – and increasingly unique in the region – the picturesque scenery is varied and the birdlife prolific. (Our private boats are comfortable and there’s generally a well-stocked icebox on board.)
Floating village on the Sangkar River, Cambodia The Sangkar River journey features on the Cambodia Overland tour, the Cambodia and Vietnam tour and our Cambodia and Laos Indochina Adventure. (Another significant Cambodian boat journey, the morning trip up the Mekong to Phnom Penh, actually begins in the Mekong Delta, so is described in the Vietnam section.)
Laos boat journeys
With the Mekong River running the entire length of the country, boat trips, not surprisingly, feature heavily on our Laos tours. Several of these, such as the morning trip up the Ou in Nong Khiaw, the boat from Luang Prabang to the Pak Ou Caves and the highly unusual 15 kilometre return journey on an underground river in Konglor Cave, are in the round-trip – half-day tour vein, so the principal A to B journeys would be the three Mekong River journeys; Huay Xai to Luang Prabang, Pakse to Champassak and Champassak to Don Khone.
The old French railway bridge linking Don Khone to Don Daet Huay Xai to Luang Prabang, Mekong River
The former, offered as our popular Mekong Cruise extension, departs Huay Xai Town – opposite Thailand’s Chiang Rai Province – in the morning and arrives in Luang Prabang the following afternoon with an overnight stay in a riverside lodge at Pak Beng village. (It’s a small-ish boat, so no cabins and doesn’t really count as a cruise as such. The boat is comfortable, the scenery magnificent, two days is just about right and it’s a wonderful way to arrive in historic Luang Prabang.
Pakse to Champassak, Mekong River
Pakse to Champassak is a short 2-hour journey due south down the Mekong River from the province’s largest town to historic Champassak, the stepping-off point for World Heritage Wat Phu. Public boats used to ply the route and although they’ve since been made redundant by the construction of a new highway, we’ve retained the picturesque boat journey on our south Laos itinerary and Emerald Triangle tour.
Don Khong to Don Khone, Mekong/4,000 Islands
The second trip is lengthier and weaves its way through the magnificent scenery of Si Phan Don, the 4,000 Islands, between Don Khong and Don Khone. We stop on one island for a walk and another for lunch with a local family, and arrive at our riverside resort on Don Khone in the early afternoon. A delightful way to spend a morning.
Mekong boats between Chiang Khong and Huay Xai Thailand boat journeys
There are several fantastic day, or half-day, boat tours on our Thai tours, such as Cheow Lan Lake or Thale Noi, for example or the circumnavigation of Ayutthaya ancient city, but keeping to our journeys rule, the obvious one springing to mind is the afternoon ride down the Kok River from Chiang Mai’s Thaton to Chiang Rai City.
The Kok River
The Kok flows through the far northeastern corner of Chiang Mai on its way from Myanmar’s Shan State, through Chiang Rai Province to join the Mekong on the Lao border. The river is lined by forested hills and passes through Lam Nam Kok National Park and past several minority villages. The boat journey from Tha Ton Town to Chiang Rai’s provincial capital takes around 4 hours or so by ‘long-tail’ boat, depending upon the number of stops and water levels.
The Kok River in Chiang Rai Province Vietnam boat journeys
We were tempted to include our Halong Bay trip, but it is a tour rather than a journey and in so far as we spend a night onboard ship, it does rather fit the cruise description, so…
There are plenty of other boat trips on our various Vietnam itineraries; up the Perfume River in Hue, dug-out canoes to visit the secret Vietcong base of Xe Quit, or through the grottoes and lakes of World Heritage Trang An, but again, these are tours rather than journeys.
Chau Doc to Phnom Penh, Mekong River
We use the scheduled public boats – see below – for our journey up the Mekong River from Vietnam’s Chau Doc to the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh. The 5 to 6-hour journey thus includes stops at Vietnamese immigration for your exit stamp and Khmer border control for your Cambodian visa. (E-visas are not accepted here, but visas on arrival are issued.) A comfortable boat with a choice of an enclosed inner seating area or the rear deck and the boat company thoughtfully includes a local guide to ensure smooth border procedures. Cuts out the need for a flight or a long bus ride and is a great way of arriving in Phnom Penh. This Mekong River journey appears on both our Vietnam and Cambodia Overland and Saigon to Angkor tours.
Boarding in Chau Doc for the boat journey to Phnom Penh Cai Be to Vinh Long – the Mekong Delta
It might not look far on a map, but the journey from Cai Be to Vinh Long takes up most of the morning as our craft weaves and winds its way through the maze of channels that make up this small section of Vietnam’s vast Mekong Delta. There are also a number of stops, at tropical fruit orchards and riverside cottage industries for example, so a short but fascinating boat journey. Yes, it could be done a lot faster by minivan and it is a tour, but it does transport us from A to B, so we’re including it.
Our local-style wooden craft for the journey through the Mekong Delta A couple of sadly missed Southeast Asian boat journeys
Times change, even local geography isn’t fixed and for various reasons certain trips become logistically impossible so here’s an honourable mention for a couple of our sadly now defunct Southeast Asian boat journeys which some of you may have been lucky enough to take in earlier times and, one of which at least, may possibly be resurrected at some stage in the future.
Nong Khiaw to Luang Prabang, The Ou River
The damming of the Ou River put a stop to this boat journey, which used to take us from the small town of Nong Khiaw, down the Ou via the famous sacred caves at Pak Ou to historic, World Heritage Luang Prabang. That stretch of river slotted in very conveniently with our itinerary and it was a highly scenic one as well. Nong Khiaw to Pak Ou is now done by road, with the last section, along the Mekong to Luang Prabang, completed by boat. To replace it, we added a morning boat tour upstream on the Ou, which offers more spectacular landscapes but is an up-and-down, return trip from Nong Khiaw.
Traditional-style boats at Pak Ou Veung Kham to Steung Treng, Mekong River
This boat journey took us from the Lao border, down the Mekong into northern Cambodia and the remote town of Steung Treng. The trip was convoluted as it involved travelling by road to the Lao-Cambodian border crossing, exiting Laos and obtaining our Cambodian stamps before returning to the boat jetty, which was located back in Laos. but had no immigration facilities. (We have to say that both sets of immigration police were always very understanding.) Once on the boat, we’d head south on the Mekong, which at that point forms a spectacular labyrinth of rocky islets and seasonal sandbanks. (The area is home to abundant, often rare, birdlife and is Ramsar-listed, under the catchy name of Middle Stretches of Mekong River North of Stoeng Treng.)
The maze of flooded forest and sand banks that form the treacherous section of the Mekong between the Lao border and Steung Treng Town. (Note the tree roots following the river flow.) As the Ramsar site states, “it is characterised by (a) strong turbulent flow with numerous channels between rocky and sandy islands,” and as these would change on a weekly basis, it was essential to have an experienced boatman. Regrettably, when we returned after 3 years of COVID and no passengers, the boatmen had all sold their craft and moved on to alternative employment. Furthermore, road upgrades between the border and the provincial capital, Stueng Treng Town, meant that local passengers or goods no longer used this tricky stretch of river. If tourism in this far-flung region ever picks up, then the boat journey may once again become a viable option.
Finally, one we don’t miss – Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, The Tonle Sap
These days, Highway 6 from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap is an excellent road. Large sections are now 4-lane and the 320 kilometres are comfortably covered in around 5 hours driving time plus plenty of interesting stops, but when we first started running Cambodia tours, things were very different. It wasn’t that the road wasn’t very good, but rather there was no sealed road at all. Travelling time between the capital and the country’s major tourist attraction was – if all went well – 2 days on a dirt track. Consequently, one either flew or took the boat up the Tonle Sap River and across the lake. Around 6 to 7 hours – again, if all went well – the majority of which was spent crossing the vast lake. The lake is so large that no land would be visible for several hours, so nothing to look at except sky and water, or the onboard movies. If you add to that the horrendous, often overloaded, accident-waiting-to-happen boats, then it was not a pleasant journey. (An unusual combination of boring and scary.)
