Jul 252011
 

This may be both the nicest and most expensive hotel operation in Chamapasak.

There are three levels of rooms. The lowest level is very nice, and located in a building cross the street (think almost-single-lane, pot-holed road) from all the hotel’s restaurant and other rooms.

The highest level are two-story suites with lots of glass. They look pretty nice – like apartments – but may suffer a little in the privacy department.

The mid-range rooms are three “bungalows,” which are really large rooms with private baths. Two rooms are joined into one building; one room and what looks like storage see joined into another. A decked common area with umbrulla’d tables is between the two buildings, and is overlooked by the building with the four or so upper-level, two-story rooms.

We stayed in a mid-range “bungalow.” It was spacious, clean, and had nice furnishings. The bed was comfortable (they had to join two twins together to make us a single, large bed). It had a great bathroom – a decent-sized bathroom, open-sky shower with one of those large rain shower heads, and separate closet for the self-flushing Western toilet. The room had exposed beams in the ceiling, so it felt open. There was a television, air conditioning, ceiling fan, and mini-bar refrigerator. The construction and maintenance standards were fairly high, particularly for Laos and Thailand.

The restaurant was decent, if a bit high on pricing (12,000 Kip for a beer at Happy Hour, versus the standard 10,000 Kip lost everywhere else; and so on). Breakfast was included with the room. It was good both in quantity and quality, with the omelette being the best we’ve had in Southeast Asia to date, and the fresh-squeezed fruit juice being excellent.

We rented a motorbike from the hotel for 80,000 Kip a day. It functioned better than most Laotian rentals we’ve had.

There is free wi-fi Internet access available in the restaurant and reception. The router signal did not extend to our room, but it did hot the common area just outside, so it may be available in some rooms.

The price of the room was steep for Laos, at $59 US a night for our bungalow – and this was the off-season rate. We did get the third night free for a three-night stay, however, which eased the pain.

Inthira does a lot of things right. It provides clean, quiet, well-made, well-maintained, spacious, bug-free accommodations that are easily the best that Champasak has to offer. For this, you pay a premium price – but it’s worth it, given the alternatives.

We would readily stay here again, and recommend it to anyone headed to Champasak.

 Posted by at 12:34 am