Chiang Khong via Chiang Saen

10/03/2019
Bright and early next morning, we jumped aboard a local “baht bus” headed for Chiang Saen. ‘Baht bus’ translates to dollar bus and you get what you pay for, ours was a battered old Hino with the back door tied open by a scrap of rusty wire. A chilly breeze slipped through the gap, raising goosebumps on my arms despite the thin hoodie I pulled tighter around me. At barely 17 degrees, it felt positively wintry for Thailand, each exhale hanging in the air as a fleeting, ghostly wisp of mist. 
​Our driver navigated the half-finished roads, with cheerful nonchalance, rattling past small clusters of houses and simple roadside shops. School kids hopped aboard in pristine uniforms, their infectious laughter piercing the mechanical growl of the engine. A lottery ticket seller climbed in and instantly transformed the bus into his makeshift marketplace, fanning out vibrant paper stubs before stepping back onto the dusty roadside as abruptly as he’d arrived. 

Rice paddies shimmered vividly green outside our window until a towering billboard intruded, plastered with a politician’s enthusiastic thumbs-up and oversized grin. Somehow, his cheerful political promise jarred harshly with the gentle, rural calm.
​Stepping off in Chiang Saen felt like stepping backstage; clearly, this town wasn’t crafted for tourists. No bright, welcoming signs, neat lockers, or carefully printed timetables here. Instead, we entered a bustling riverside scene, lively with local trade and chatter. Spotting a small police station, Pete nudged me gently.
“Think they’d mind holding our packs?” he asked with a hopeful shrug.Two officers exchanged startled glances as we approached but soon broke into broad, slightly bemused smiles. We handed over our backpacks with gratitude and a small gift of chocolate biscuits and fresh oranges, drawing surprised chuckles all round. The officers seemed delighted by the gesture.

The Mekong River buzzed with activity; traders hurriedly lifted pineapples, cabbage, and squawking crates of chickens onto slender long-tail boats bound for Laos. I’d always pictured global commerce as enormous ports, ships and mechanical cranes, yet here it was deeply personal, a man balancing bananas precariously on his shoulder, a woman confidently juggling boxes of plastic cups. It felt intimate, human, and utterly fascinating.
​A short walk away, the bustling street faded unexpectedly into ancient ruins, relics from the Lanna kingdom dating back to 545 CE. The first stronghold of the Tai people’s as they began there migration from Yunnan. Toppled walls and crumbling chedis rose quietly amid tall grasses, oblivious to the roar of motorbikes or the metallic clang from a nearby noodle stall. It felt oddly like exploring Grandma’s attic while the family carried on noisily downstairs.

Of course, we had to tick off the requisite Golden Triangle snapshot, so we flagged down a tuk tuk. Our driver chuckled good-naturedly, joining our laughter as we posed shamelessly for a cheesy “Look! We’re here!” photo. Afterwards, the Opium Museum drew us into the darker chapters of this region’s past, sobering us with faded displays detailing how this infamous trade once defined life along these borders.

Feeling both enlightened and quietly reflective, we returned to Chiang Saen, retrieving our packs from the still-grinning policemen, and wandered over to the docks for the long-tail boat to Chiang Khong… only to learn that service had been canned years ago.
​No boat? Right then, the bus! I declared with forced optimism. But buses, as we quickly discovered, were as elusive as unicorns in Chiang Saen on Sunday. That left the trusty songthaew, an open-backed ute fitted with two bench seats, a metal roof, and already packed tight with market-goers, sacks of cabbage, crates of lively chickens, and a tantalising aroma of roast pork mixing with diesel fumes. 

We wedged ourselves onto the narrow wooden benches, my knees pressed awkwardly against someone’s enormous stash of colourful yarn. As the vehicle bounced along winding riverside roads, conversations flowed warmly around us, market gossip mingling with laughter and the sharing of snacks. Occasionally, friendly faces leaned forward, asking kindly if we needed more space. My grin in response must have looked comical, considering my head brushed continuously against the metal roof.
​That “one-hour” ride stretched delightfully into ninety minutes, punctuated by scenic river glimpses, frequent stops, and an infectious camaraderie amongst our fellow passengers. Despite the awkward seating arrangement and the roof’s determined assault on my 1.8-metre frame, the journey became an unexpected highlight, offering an authenticity no luxury tour bus ever could.
I practically tumbled out of the songthaew onto Chiang Khong’s dusty roadside, knees creaking from an hour and a half of contortions. Late-afternoon sun gleamed off the Mekong, painting the river a burnished gold, like a quiet promise of adventures just downstream.
​Chiang Khong may not be the stuff of glossy brochures, but it’s got one thing going for it: a front-row seat to the slow boat shuffle. Perched on the banks of the Mekong, it’s backpacker central, a sleepy launchpad where gap-year adventurers gather en-masse to tick off the two-day river journey to Luang Prabang. That was our plan too… until we discovered that our preferred “premium, small-group” slow boat wouldn’t leave until Wednesday. And it was Sunday. Sure, we could’ve jammed ourselves in with a hundred sunburnt twenty-somethings on Monday’s floating frat party, but instead, we played our first official ‘seniors luxury card.’ A couple of extra days in this dusty little border town sounded infinitely more appealing than surrendering our eardrums to a Bluetooth speaker blasting Deep House at 9 a.m. 

We booked ourselves into The Hub Pub & Funky Box, a convivial hostel run by the irrepressible Eve and God who buzzed about with boundless enthusiasm and a seemingly endless supply of quirky anecdotes. Mornings began idyllically with a leisurely stroll along the riverbanks.  Zelda the hostel’s ever-patient canine concierge, would trot beside us, wagging her tail politely as if reminding us to hurry up and reach the noodle stall. We’d perch on chairs that wobbled alarmingly close to collapse, slurping noodles while the morning mist curled lazily off the river like a stage curtain lifting on another Southeast Asian day. 
​By the second morning, guilt (or maybe just peer pressure) got the better of us, and a ragtag group of hostel-dwellers decided it was time to earn our beers. We naively set off on what had been promised as a straightforward ten-kilometre walk to a waterfall. In hindsight, the word walk was doing a lot of heavy lifting. Ten minutes in, it became clear this was less gentle stroll and more jungle-themed episode of Survivor. We scrambled gracelessly over slippery rocks, flailed inelegantly through thigh-deep streams, and emitted panicked squeals each time a vine attempted to wrestle us to the ground. 

Eventually, we found ourselves gazing at a cluster of turquoise pools, each brimming over into the next with a gentle, shimmering cascade. On a sun-warmed boulder, our guide flattened a banana leaf and laid out a spread of grilled chicken, sticky rice, and ripe fruit. The scent of char mingled with the cool spray from the waterfall, and we gathered around, ravenously.
​Back at the hostel, the communal vibe turned everything into a kind of impromptu cocktail party. The air hummed with debates over the best island getaway or the fastest route to Vietnam. Wafts of Eve’s homemade burgers drifted through the courtyard, making us groan in anticipation. On our last night, he surprised us with Belgian beef stew, and I grinned at the irony of sampling European comfort food on our last night in Thailand.

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