Residence Bassac

Check in along Champasak's main street, in a building that dates from the early 20th century and now holds Residence Bassac. The hotel keeps fourteen rooms across three categories: four duplex suites with an upstairs bedroom and downstairs lounge, two suites on the Mekong side finished in pale blue tile, four garden bungalows, and four superior doubles and twins. Duplex suites run to 50 square metres over two floors, each with a terrace looking towards Phou Khao mountain. Superior twins carry two 1.2-metre beds and face the town's quieter street side. Meals are served at Soum Noum, a restaurant fitted out with references to the region's history, and at the Sala, an open terrace on the Mekong with a wide 180-degree view of the river. The kitchen works Lao and Mediterranean dishes side by side, from wood-fired pizza to sticky rice with mortar-pounded sauces. Champasak itself spans nine villages and sits near the pre-Angkorian temple of Wat Phou, a UNESCO World Heritage site. From the hotel, staff arrange cycling routes past rice fields and colonial-era churches, wooden-boat trips upriver to Wat Tomo, and day drives to the Bolaven Plateau for coffee grown in volcanic soil. Pakse, the regional capital, lies about 30 minutes away by road.