Luang Prabang or Yangshuo?

Neither place has a beach, and you swim in both in very different ways. In Luang Prabang the rivers are too fast and muddy to swim in, so a dip means a half-day trip to the turquoise forest pools below Kuang Si or Tad Sae.

In Yangshuo the river itself is the swimming spot. In the hot months people wade in from the gravel banks and weirs of the Yulong at the end of a raft or bike ride. It is more casual, but the setting is less striking.

Luang Prabang has the more rewarding table, though not by a wide margin. It has its own dishes, such as peppery or lam, smoky jeow bong and crisp river-weed kaipen, along with a morning market and a French legacy of baguettes, bakeries and strong highland coffee.

Yangshuo's food comes down to a few regional favourites: beer fish, stuffed snails and vegetables, and rice noodles for breakfast. You eat better in the side streets and villages than on West Street, and there is no coffee culture to match the Lao one. In both places the menus start to repeat within a few days.

There is a big gap here. Luang Prabang is a heritage town in its own right. More than thirty monasteries stand on its peninsula, led by Wat Xieng Thong and its glass-mosaic Tree of Life, and the town is still a working religious centre where monks collect alms at dawn.

Yangshuo offers a stone Ming bridge, an ancient banyan tree and some old brick villages along the Yulong, but its centre has been rebuilt and it has no museums of note. Anyone who comes for heritage will find more in the old towns nearby than in Yangshuo itself.

Yangshuo is the place for a night out. After dark, West Street fills with loud bars, dancers on stage and crowds of domestic tourists, and it stays busy well past midnight. Quieter backpacker bars sit just off the main strip.

Luang Prabang has a few garden bars and riverside terraces, but the town curfew closes them around midnight, and after that the streets go dark and quiet. It suits a drink at sunset, not a late night.

Both places are surrounded by fine country, but Yangshuo's scenery is the more famous and more dramatic. Its limestone peaks rise straight out of the rice fields at the edge of town. The walk along the Li between Yangdi and Xingping and the views from Moon Hill and Laozhai Hill are classics, and the rock climbing draws people from around the world.

Luang Prabang's setting is gentler: green hills, the Mekong sliding past limestone cliffs, the tiered falls at Kuang Si and treks to Hmong and Khmu villages. It is lovely, but you go for a mix of town and nature rather than for the landscape alone.

Yangshuo has the longer list of outings. The old quarters of Xingping, Fuli and Daxu are all close by, Huangyao has well-preserved Ming and Qing streets, and Guilin is about an hour away.

From Luang Prabang the classic trip is the boat ride to the Buddha-filled Pak Ou caves, along with the weaving villages nearby. The train puts Vang Vieng and Vientiane within reach, but beyond them the area is mostly countryside rather than other towns to explore.

Yangshuo has more for active children. There are gentle bamboo rafts, show caves with mud pools and easy village rides on tandems, and Chinese families travel here in such numbers that children are welcome everywhere. Busy roads and the noise of West Street at night are the drawbacks.

Luang Prabang's big hit is Kuang Si, with its rescued bears and swimming pools, plus the long-tail boat rides. After that, most of the sights are temples, and with limited medical care the town is better for older children than toddlers.

Luang Prabang is much easier to get around. Nearly everything in the old town is a short, flat walk or bike ride away, and the traffic is light. You only need a tuk-tuk or boat for the waterfalls and caves.

In Yangshuo the centre is small, but the things you came for are out in the countryside. That means hiring a bicycle, a scooter or a driver, dealing with coach traffic and signs mostly in Chinese, and making a separate drive to the high-speed rail station.

Luang Prabang is better for shopping, mainly because of its textiles. The nightly market on the main street sells silk, Hmong embroidery and paper lanterns. In the weaving studios in town and in the nearby villages you can watch natural dyeing and buy cloth of real quality.

Yangshuo's stalls are mostly mass-produced souvenirs. The worthwhile buys are the hand-painted fans from the workshops in Fuli, local tea and osmanthus treats.

Both are cheap places to stay, but costs creep up in different ways. In Luang Prabang, a guesthouse, market food and a bicycle cost little, and the bill only climbs if you choose a restored colonial hotel, wine by the river or a private driver.

In Yangshuo, daily living is just as cheap, but the river cruises, rafts, cave entries and the big night show all charge tourist prices. Room rates also jump sharply during Golden Week and the Spring Festival.

Neither place has much to offer, but Yangshuo has the bigger evening out: the outdoor Li River show staged by Zhang Yimou, with hundreds of performers lit on the water against the floodlit peaks. Beyond that, there are staged dance shows for tour groups and cover bands.

Luang Prabang's main performance is smaller and more traditional: the masked Phralak Phralam, the Lao Ramayana, danced at the theatre in the Royal Palace grounds. A few folk evenings and the temple drums at dusk make up the rest.

Luang Prabang is restful wherever you stay. There is no high-rise and little traffic, and the days run from the dawn alms round to sunset over the Mekong. Gentle Lao massage, lemongrass-scented herbal steam rooms and riverside yoga in boutique hotels fit naturally into that pace.

Yangshuo can be just as peaceful, but only out in the Yulong valley or the villages towards Xingping, where tai chi classes and a cave mud pool add to quiet terraces. Stay in the town centre and the noise carries late into the night.