The Soutikone 2 Guesthouse is a 19 room hotel in Luang Prabang in Laos. This hotel is a popular choice for foreign visitors to the city looking for an air-conditioned en-suite room at an affordable price.
Good points about Soutikone 2 Guesthouse
The Soutikone 2 Guesthouse has a central location. From the hotel it is a 600 m walk to Luang Prabang Night Market and a 400 metre walk to Wat Ban Aham. Luang Prabang Southern Bus Terminal is located 2.2 km to the south of the Soutikone 2 Guesthouse. Despite its central location, it’s very quiet at the Soutikone 2 Guesthouse as the guest accommodation is set back from the main road on a quiet side street. There is a convenience store on the road opposite the entrance and 8 small restaurants within 200 metre walking distance of the Soutikone 2 Guesthouse.
Friendly staff at the Soutikone 2 GuesthouseThe Soutikone 2 Guesthouse is also great value for money. Booked online private rooms are available from $20 USD a night, inclusive of breakfast and other charges. You can find cheaper rooms in Luang Prabang, but not with the same range of facilities.
Booking the The Soutikone 2 Guesthouse in advance is recommended. If you are travelling overland to Luang Prabang from Vientiane or from Vietnam you are pretty much guaranteed to turn up late at night as all bus services on the routes to Luang Prabang travel during daylight hours as the roads are too difficult to travel at night. The last thing you want to do when you turn up late at night in Luang Prabang (probably much later than scheduled) is to be wandering around the city looking for a free room.
Rooms at Soutikone 2 Guesthouse
There are two styles of room at the Soutikone 2 Guesthouse. One style of room has wooden panel walls and the other has painted concrete walls. Both styles of rooms are nicely decorated with tasteful fabrics and framed pictures on the wall. The rooms at the Soutikone 2 Guesthouse do not look those you would find in a cheap backpacker establishment.
Standard double room at the Soutikone 2 GuesthouseThe beds are soft and come with thin duvets and white linen. The air-conditioning was sufficient powerful to allow you a comfortable night of sleep.
In room facilities at the Soutikone 2 GuesthouseAll rooms feature a fridge, satellite TV, in room safe, en-suite bathroom and kettle, with tea and coffee supplied by the hotel. There was nothing I needed when I stayed that was not provided.
Bathrooms at the Soutikone 2 GuesthouseThe bathrooms are average. The shower worked, as did the toilet, but the bathroom needed some cosmetic work doing to it to bring it up to the standard of the bedroom. The hotel did, however, supply free shower gel, towels, soap and disposable toothbrushes. The bathrooms was clean also.
Facilities at Soutikone 2 Guesthouse
The only facilities in the hotel are the reception area and downstairs seating area, and a similar area upstairs. They serve a basic breakfast with toast, eggs and fruit which I did not try. The reason I didn’t try the breakfast is that I got up at 07:00 when the breakfast service was meant to begin and waited around for 15 minutes for someone to appear at the reception. At this point I gave up and got a very good croissant and coffee at a small cafe just around the corner. When I got back to the hotel other guests were up getting their breakfast so I guess I simply got up a bit too early.
Breakfast area at the Soutikone 2 GuesthouseThe staff at the hotel were generally very helpful and friendly. The reception is run by two young Lao men with good English and a very relaxed attitude, and that relaxed attitude appeared to extend to not getting up on time to start the breakfast service. This said, the pace of life in Luang Prabang is very laid back and my expectations of things happening perfectly on time were unreasonably high. Everything in Laos seems to happen a bit later than planned and breakfast at the Soutikone 2 Guesthouse is the same.