Chilled beers to float your boat in languid Laos

The former imperial capital of Laos is a perfect vision of old Indochina, laid out by French planners, built by Vietnamese craftsmen, preserved by Unesco and still home to the once-upon-a-time Lao royal family, who governed the country from here.

It’s like a film set, a composition of old Chinese-style shophouses and immaculate colonial mansions, shuttered and balconied, with the curved roofs of 32 temples rising above.

A composition animated by bicycle rickshaws and saffron-robed monks and filled with a babble of languages from all over the world.

Its innocence and travel-friendliness reminded me of Thailand’s ever-popular Chiang Mai when I first arrived there 40 years ago, but Thailand’s northern capital has since become a big urbanisation, while Luang Prabang still retains the innocence of a stumbled-across backwater from days gone by.