ROSEWOOD
LUANG PRABANG
Luang Prabang’s newest address for the ultimate in luxury. TEXT BY CLAIRE BOOBBYER PHOTOGRAPHS BY ROSEWOOD LUANG PRABANG GETTING THERE Lao Airlines flies to Luang Prabang from Vientiane, Bangkok, Hanoi, Siem Reap, and Chiang Mai. For hotel reservations: rosewoodhotels.com/ en/luang-prabang
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waddled in lush plants and flowers and straddling a burbling brook, Rosewood Luang Prabang is a ro mantic sanctuary for those seeking escape and seclusion after walking the city’s UNESCO-protected villas and temples. Climbing up a hillside, beyond the Nam Dong River, 23 rooms including riverside villas, pool suites, and luxury tents are discovered off herringbone brick walkways stitched together with wooden bridges. There’s a sense of discovery among the trees – like wandering a maze – although with no sense of being truly lost, just a
fresh-air meander through the pale-pink hibiscus-flecked gardens. Riverside villas and pool suites overlooking the cool flow below have been fashioned in homage to the 19th-century French stalwarts of the Mekong Expedition, the men of the Indochina civil service, and Laos’ long gone Royal Family. Each room a curated wunderkammer: vintage trunks, butterfly nets, desks, botanical prints, framed maps, books, with taut white bed linens, and stencilled bathrooms. Higher up the jungly hill, six safari-style luxury tents, celebrating a handful of hilltribes, tower over the gardens like an explorer’s retreat. Bangkok-based American architect and designer Bill Bensley has crafted a luxurious cocoon in the heights – tangerine silk lanterns dangle over a turquoise velvet headboard, crowned by an exquisite tasselled Lisu headdress in pinks, royal blue, mustard
