Villa Nam Song

Laos was still closed from COVID during my visit (early April, 2021) and there were few westerners. The only visitors in Vang Vieng are Lao nationals and foreigners working in-country, so holiday tourism is primarily on weekends. Vang Vieng is mostly empty, especially weekdays. That meant discount prices on hotels . If you go now, don't book online! Just go to hotels and ask the price, it is generally much less than the online price. The Villa Nam Som is at the end of Walking Street at the river, and sits at a lovely spot with great views, with the Veranda Restaurant overhanging the river. I can't agree with the negative complaints in other reviews. My room was really large, clean, with a king bed, a safe, a frig, coffee maker, desk, and an excellent bathroom with a very good hot shower. Good wifi. The garden is lovely. It is only a few minutes walk to the very center of town. However, the TV had only CNN as an english channel. There is no pool, so the room price is lower than comparable places. Two complaints - First, the small road down to the hotel also goes to a boat landing; it is unpaved, and a lot of dust is kicked up by the vehicles coming and going. The section of road down to the Villa should be paved. Second - Saturday nite, one of the joints directly across the river plays ear-splitting obnoxious music until 11 pm (this is actually illegal, but seemingly impossible to enforce).

Based on my stay, there is little to recommend this hotel. Rooms although quite spacious, are poorly decorated and standards of cleanliness need improvement. The bed was reasonably comfortable though. Breakfast is extremely poor. Cold congealed fried eggs, bacon and hot dogs, poor quality juices and coffee and poor choice of breads on offer. Generally poor service. Overall, a disappointing stay. I would not return or recommend it to others

Room is ok, bathroom is ugly and keeps flooding plus the water from the shower doesn’t come out well. The floor is very slippery on the outdoors and very dangerous, they should definitely fix that. Breakfast could be much better, they serve industrial juice and jam when there’s so much fruit in season to offer fresh juices and jams, a real shame. I don’t think it’s worth the money.