Getting to know Thailand
Most travel sites hand you the whole of Thailand: southern beaches, island-hopping, a dozen provinces that have nothing to do with a river journey. We are not built that way. Our business is the Mekong, so this page only keeps the pieces of Thailand that connect to it, plus the two cities most people fly through on the way there.
One correction is worth making before anything else, because it is the single most common mistake in Thailand river marketing: the water running through Chiang Mai is the Ping, and the Ping belongs to the Chao Phraya basin, the system that drains south toward Bangkok. It never joins the Mekong at any point. Chiang Mai earns its place on this site as a pleasant stop on the road north, cooler and slower-paced than the capital, not as a town on the Mekong itself.
The genuine river stretch sits further northeast, in Chiang Rai province. Chiang Saen is an old trading port with brick temple ruins from its river-borne past. Chiang Khong is the border town where the Fourth Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge crosses to Huay Xai, the usual starting point for a slow boat into Laos. And a short drive from both sits Sop Ruak, the point where Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet at a bend in the Mekong, known as the Golden Triangle. That cluster of towns, not Chiang Mai, is where a Mekong trip through Thailand actually starts.
Where to go in Thailand
Good to know before you go
| What | Detail |
|---|---|
| Best season | November to February is coolest and driest; haze from agricultural burning is common roughly February to April, and heat builds from March |
| Visa-free stay | 30 days for around 60 nationalities from 15 September 2026, down from 60 days; a further 30-day extension can be applied for at Immigration |
| Shorter exemptions | Mauritius and Seychelles get 15 days rather than 30 |
| Visa on arrival | Now limited to three nationalities: Azerbaijan, Belarus and Serbia |
| Crossing into Laos | Fourth Friendship Bridge at Chiang Khong, to Huay Xai; First Friendship Bridge at Nong Khai, to Vientiane |
| Currency | Thai Baht (THB) |
| Electricity | 220V; sockets generally take both flat two-pin (Type A) and round two-pin (Type C) plugs |
Planning your Thailand trip
Our Thailand catalogue is deliberately short, because Thailand is not the centre of what we do. If you want a river-focused route that actually uses this country, look at [Golden Triangle to the Nine Dragons](mekong/tours/14d13n-golden-triangle-to-the-nine-dragons), which starts in Chiang Rai and follows the Mekong through three more countries, or pair a Thailand stay with [Slow Boat from Huay Xai to Luang Prabang](laos/tours/7d6n-slow-boat-huay-xai-to-luang-prabang) once you reach the Lao side of the border.
For a Thailand-only trip, our packages stay close to Chiang Mai and the Golden Triangle rather than trying to cover the whole country. Send us your dates, along with your party size, and a plan comes back.
How your trip is run in Thailand
Every itinerary here runs with a private vehicle and an English-speaking local guide rather than a fixed-departure coach group, which means your pace, your questions and your interests actually shape the day. If a flight changes or a border rule shifts, as the Cambodia crossing has, our local contact reworks the plan and lets you know directly rather than leaving you to sort it out from a call centre overseas.