The Apsara Rive Droite

The Buddhas in the lobby of The Apsara Rive Droite are glass, in bubblegum colours, and the lampshades over them are big enough to sway. The rest of its homage to the colonial era is more sober: dark wood, black-and-white photographs, and Lao silk on the beds and the walls in sand, black and garnet. Nine rooms share a pair of buildings on the right bank of the Nam Khan. Their large green wooden doors open onto verandas and balconies, over the garden on the ground floor and the river on the first, which is the floor to ask for. The shower has a head the size of a dinner plate, and above the basin a mirrored panel slides back to become a window onto the bedroom, so nobody need shave alone.

Recommended for couples who want the temples of Luang Prabang close and the town's busier streets on the other side of a river, and for families once the youngest has turned twelve. The hotel's boat crosses to the old town in about a minute. The bridge takes ten, on one of its bicycles, which also cope with the rutted lanes of Ban Phanluang. On this bank the pool lies in a manicured garden behind bamboo and tropical planting, which hides the river traffic from the loungers and leaves them the peninsula. Guests write about the manager by name; at nine rooms, the introductions do not take long. The kitchen's Lao-fusion menu is short - a dried beef and lemongrass salad, a spicy buffalo sausage - and the bar's lychee daiquiri is meant for the pool. For dinner the boat goes over to Apsara, the sister hotel, and brings everyone back afterwards in a minute, which the bridge has never managed.