Satri House

Prince Souphanouvong grew up in this house and went on to help bring down the monarchy that built it. Known as the Red Prince, he sided with the communists, and in December 1975 became the first president of the Lao People's Democratic Republic, which had no further use for princes. His childhood home, built early in the twentieth century for a branch of the royal family, is the older of Satri House's two French colonial houses, set in gardens on a quiet lane in Ban That Luang. The main pool lies in the shade of the old house and the second lower down, beside the spa, whose high-ceilinged treatment rooms stand round a pond of lilies. Rooms run to hardwood four-posters and antiques collected across Asia, and the Satri House Suites, the ones to ask for, are in the prince's own house.

Recommended for anyone who wants Luang Prabang's temples on foot and a garden to come back to, and for families content with a Family Suite and a babysitter in place of a kids' club. Wat Xieng Thong and the Old Town peninsula are five to ten minutes' walk, less on the hotel's free bicycles. The Royal Palace Museum takes about fifteen. The palace was the royal family's until 1975, and the republic Souphanouvong presided over opened it as a museum the following March. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays the hotel's boat goes out on the Mekong for the sunset. More than one guest has compared Satri House itself to a museum, for its antiques. The palace is the more thorough of the two. It does not, however, serve breakfast until noon.