I’ll be spending 3 nights in Luang Prabang in a few months, and I’m trying to sort out where to stay. I do enjoy welcoming places and comfortable accommodations, but I also like prime locations.

I have read the previous posts on Lunag Prabang. It seems that the nicest accommodations are outside the city center. However, I’d like to spend 1 night in the center, especially to see the monks in their early-morning activities. Then, I’d spend 2 nights outside the center (but still within an easy tuk-tuk ride of downtown).

For the city center, 3 Nagas and the Villa Santi Hotel (not the resort) seem to be the better choices. Can anyone compare these two? Are there better places in the center?

For outside the center, the Maison Souvannaphoum Hotel and the Residence Phou Vao both seem pleasant enough. Comments/comparisons?

I've stayed at 3 Nagas and Maison Souvannaphoum. Here are brief, subjective overviews of each property:

3 Nagas
The good: nice historical restoration, central location, competent service; reasonable fee for airport pick-up/drop-off
The not-so-good: thin walls (you will hear your neighbors), some street noise, no pool, average breakfast, more rice hawkers will descend upon you during the monk procession than at Maison Souvannaphoum
Bottom line: For one night and given your specs, it's perfectly fine.

Maison Souvannaphoum
The good: calm, quiet, great pool, graceful staff (who will go the extra mile for guests), good breakfast, generator in case of electrical outages
The not-so-good: overpriced airport pick-up/drop-off (better to hire a cab or jumbo), rack rates have increased, a less-than-optimal, though not inconvenient, location: it's on the outskirts of town center, but it's less than a 5-minute walk to the night market and about a 10-minute walk to 3 Nagas (at a leisurely LP pace); there's a large temple directly across the side street, so you can easily participate in the procession of monks (3 Nagas does a better job of marketing the monk procession; you can easily view or participate in the monk procession at Maison Souvannaphoum by walking across the street; if you inform the front desk the previous night, the kitchen will prepare a basket of sticky rice for you to distribute to the monks, for a small fee)
Bottom line: It's a good compromise between comfort and location and perhaps sufficiently cushy and quiet for your entire visit.

If you need more details, just ask.

I haven't stayed at either of these places, but I'm familiar with LPB. Do you have access to Google Earth? Unfortunately, the main tourist part of LPB is not quite covered by the fairly new high resolution overhead imagery.

Anyway, Villa Santi is about at Lat 19.895758°, Lon 102.142038°. 3 Nagas is pretty close. The road they're on runs generally east-west and is the main tourist road, though it's not all that busy in the environs of the hotel. The best sights are to the east, up to the end of the peninsula, and west about as far as Phusi Hill, which encompasses the farthest extent of the green blob to the west. The side streets, wats, and buildings in this area, especially toward the Mekong are pretty nice, although there's been a bunch of redevelopment. Well, there's a lot of redevelopment throughout LPB. It's just more noticable in this area.

The Hmong market sets up to the north of Phusi Hill. The Royal Palace Museum is in the same area.

A lot of the charm of LPB is strolling around the quieter streets on the peninsula, especially after the sun goes down. The sunset is best seen, perhaps, from a vantage point with the rest of the tourists on Phusi Hill (still, not to be missed). The street bordering the Mekong, Thanon Khem Kong, has inexpensive, but good restaurants. Fewer restaurants, but nice ones on the road bordering the Nam Khan river on the south side of the peninsula.

I guess I'm trying to relate that you may want to spend more time in the Villa Santi area and less in time in the outskirts. You can go to the weaving village, KoungSi Falls, or hire a boat for a ride on the Mekong if you want to get out of the tourist scrum.

Last, my favorite room/hotel in LPB is room 1A, the upstairs corner room overlooking Wat Xieng Muan, in the Sayo guest house. Not in the class of the other places you mentioned, but more like Lao. (Sala Prabang on the Mekong, about 2 minutes walk away is a solid alternate choice.)

(Try not to notice that the processing monks wait for the tour buses to show up before they start out close to the 3 Nagas. It's somewhat less hokey on the parallel, east-west street one block from the Mekong where locals provide food for the monks.)

I met quite a few people at the Villa Santi Resort who moved from the hotel because they weren't pleased. But for one night, I'm not sure it would matter to me all that much.

rjh: What weaving village did you go to? I went to one where they wove cotton. It was great fun because I don't know that they'd seen a tourist there ever, but, of course, I would have preferred to go to a silk weaving village. (I also understand that most of what's passed off as silk is actually rayon. I was told this is not intentional, but that most of the weavers truly believe their rayon is silk.)

Thanks to all for the excellent information. Sounds like all three nights at Maison Souvannaphoum would be the best bet: decent accommodations, very easy access to the morning procession, and decent foot or tuk-tuk access to the most interesting and scenic spots.

Ban Phanom, 4km NE of town. We ended up getting a jumbo near the market for something like US$5, including waiting time. We didn't buy anything, though a friend did a lot of looking. I was all bought out after buying textiles, principally scarves, in Vang Vieng, to go with our Beerlao umbrellas.

I think we gave some samples the burn test to make sure what was claimed to be silk was silk. Of course then you're left with the thought that perhaps the sample wasn't representative of what you were buying. We discussed this issue at length while lying on a pavilion over the river in VV drinking Beerlao until we fell asleep or fell into the river. (Edited to add: yeah, I know you're supposed to pull a thread off of the item you're actually buying. My friend didn't want to do that.)

Even harder to discern (I can't) is Lao silk from Cambodian silk. You can usually tell Thai silk from Chinese silk, he says overconfidently...

Here's a cheatsheet , pardon me, advice on how to get to the mid level pools at Kouangsi Falls.

It's probably the best solution for you. The only substantive downside is that the property has become overpriced: $200+ is outrageous for Laos, particularly with the additional 10% service charge and 10% taxes. (I think the rates were about $60 less for on-season last year.) The off-season rates ($70+), however, are an exceedingly good deal.

If you opt for a verandah room, request #201: it's on the end of the new building (away from the main road) and has a nice view of the pool.

Sounds like a nice way to spend an afternoon.