Riverside Boutique Resort

Riverside Boutique Resort owes its character to one idea, carried out with unusual conviction. Before the resort was even finished, its owner, Stephane Vigie, set out to represent Laos's many ethnic groups in the design of the rooms — and travelled to stay with eight different communities, gathering handmade textiles, beadwork and woodwork to bring back. The result is a hotel where each room draws on a different Lao culture, from naturally dyed indigo Tai Lue fabrics to Yao embroidery and Akha silverwork, with pieces made by Lao craftspeople throughout. It reads less as a themed hotel than as a small, living showcase of the country's diversity.

The setting matches the ambition. The resort sits on the bank of the Nam Song River at Vang Vieng, beneath the forest-clad limestone karst mountains that have made the area among the most striking landscapes in Laos. Vang Vieng has changed a great deal: once a byword for backpacker partying, it has grown into a calmer destination centred on its scenery — the caves, lagoons and the river — helped by a new high-speed railway that has made it an easy stop between Vientiane and Luang Prabang. Riverside, which opened in 2012 as one of the town's first luxury hotels, belongs firmly to this more grown-up Vang Vieng.

There are 34 rooms and suites, low-rise and traditional in style, most with balconies facing the river and mountains, arranged around a large pool that is among the loveliest in the country. Dining is at Restaurant du Crabe d'Or — named for a local cave — serving Lao and Western dishes indoors or on a riverside terrace; there is a genuine spa, Riverside Sala, with outdoor salas and traditional Lao herbal therapies; and the resort makes an excellent base for the area's caves, kayaking, rock climbing and dawn hot-air ballooning. It suits travellers after scenery, culture and comfort in equal measure.