North of the current city center along the banks of the river is the former governor's mansion. It was built around 1912 to 1914 for the first governor appointed from Bangkok. It was a time when there were still tensions with the colonial French across the Mekong, so the house was strongly built to resist attack, and even had a sort of bunker in the basement.In 1955, when the current king of Thailand visited, the current governor had the house renovated for the king's use on his one night in town. However, once the king left it would have been unseemly for the governor to sleep in the same room and so the house was abandoned and unused for more than 50 years.