Travellers' Checks | Luang Prabang, Laos, first to get an Azerai hotel - Aman Resorts founder’s new brand

Capital development When Laos opened up to independent travellers, in the late 1980s, practical information about the country was scarce. Lonely Planet’s South-East Asia on a Shoestring gave it just two pages in a closing five-page chapter called “The Other South-East Asia”, which also briefly covered Vietnam and Kampuchea (as Cambodia was then known). Two passport pages were needed for the stamps required to enter and then register to remain in Laos for two weeks. Officially, travellers were required to stray no further than 15km from the capital, Vientiane, after getting there by boat and bus from Nong Khai, just across the Mekong river, in northeastern Thailand.

Many backpackers, however, headed up country to the old royal capital, Luang Prabang. The journey involved several days of uncomfortable bus, boat and truck travel – if the bridges held out, the mountainsides didn’t slip, and the Hmong rebels remained hidden – but that was the only way to get there. The best place to stay, if you could get a room, was the Phousi Hotel – built by the French military in 1914 and converted into a hotel in 1961. It cost US$10 a night, if I remember rightly. Already quite run down by this time, the old place finally closed in 2014, inadvertently leaving behind its single page website (www.phousihotel.laopdr.com) as a sad souvenir. This month the prop­erty reopens as the first Azerai hotel – a new brand launched by Aman Resorts founder Adrian Zecha (next stop Havana, is the rumour).

Described as “a contemporary interpretation of a simple and elegant dwelling for today’s urbane travellers”, the 53-room hotel is in the soft-opening phase and will be taking online reservations from next month at azerai.com/luang-prabang. Opening rates start from US$250 per night.