Outcall massage at Chatuchak
Chatuchak is quiet for five days a week and then becomes one of the busiest places on earth for two, and a booking here depends entirely on which of those days it is.
- Arrival
- 30 to 55 minutes
- Hours
- 24 hours, every day
- Therapists
- Licensed, named first
- From
- THB 900, pay after
Quiet for five days, then two hundred thousand people arrive.
Chatuchak sits at the northern end of the BTS where it meets the MRT, with Mo Chit station above and Chatuchak Park station below, and the park itself occupying a large green space beside them.
What Chatuchak books most
Ordered by what people here actually choose, rather than by our menu. Every one is worked on your own bed with sheets and oil the therapist brings with her.
Relaxing oil massage
Long, even strokes with warm unscented oil. The most straightforward thing on the menu, and the one to pick if you simply want the tension gone.
DetailsTraditional Thai massage
Stretching and acupressure along the body's energy lines, worked through clothing without oil. Firm, and on tight muscles it can smart. Worked on your bed, so there is nothing to clear.
DetailsDeep tissue massage
Slower and heavier than an oil massage, aimed at the knots underneath rather than the surface. Say the word at any point and she eases off.
DetailsAromatherapy massage
The same slow work as an oil massage, with a scented blend chosen for what you need. Lemongrass to wake up, lavender to sleep. Most people book this one at night.
DetailsOffice syndrome massage
Targeted work on the neck, shoulders and upper back for people who sit at a desk all day. The one to book if your pain has a laptop-shaped cause.
DetailsCoconut oil massage
Cold-pressed coconut oil rather than the standard blend. Lighter on the skin, absorbs rather than sitting on top, and it is what most Thai therapists use on themselves.
DetailsFor five days a week it is an unremarkable northern Bangkok district: office buildings, the bus terminal, a large park used by runners and families, and residential streets behind. Perfectly pleasant and entirely ordinary.
On Saturday and Sunday the weekend market opens and everything changes. Something in the region of fifteen thousand stalls and a very large number of visitors arrive, the roads around the site fill completely, and the district becomes one of the busiest places in the country.
That two-day transformation is the single most important thing to know about booking here, because it affects the arrival window more than distance, weather or time of day ever do.
The residential stock is a mix of condominium towers near the stations, older apartment blocks behind, and housing further out toward Kasetsart and the northern suburbs.
Market days, and what they do to an arrival
The weekend market runs Saturday and Sunday and it dominates this district on those days in a way that is hard to overstate. The roads around the site are effectively static from mid-morning until late afternoon.
For an arrival that means one of two things. If your address is on the far side of the market from wherever the therapist is coming from, the journey by road is genuinely difficult and the estimate goes out considerably. If she can reach you by rail and walk, it is much less affected.
The rail lines are the saving grace. Both the BTS and the MRT serve this district and neither is affected by the road, though both are extremely crowded on market days. A therapist coming by train will get here; the last few hundred metres on foot through the crowd is the slow part.
The practical advice is to book either before the market gets going, meaning before about ten in the morning, or after it winds down, meaning after about seven in the evening. The middle of a Saturday is the single worst window we have anywhere in the city.
Saturday and Sunday, the roads around the market do not move. Book earlier or book late.
The five quiet days
Monday to Friday this is a completely different district and it is worth saying so plainly, because people who have only been here at the weekend assume it is always like that.
The market site is largely closed, the roads run normally, and the district reverts to being an ordinary northern Bangkok neighbourhood with a park, some offices and a bus terminal. The arrival window on a Tuesday is thirty to fifty-five minutes and it holds.
The bookings on weekdays come from residents rather than visitors: condominium dwellers near the stations, people working in the office buildings around the interchange, and households in the streets behind.
If you live here and can arrange your regular treatment for a weekday, do. It is quicker, easier and the choice of therapist is better than anything available on a Saturday afternoon.
The park, and the runners
Chatuchak Park and the two parks adjoining it form one of the largest green spaces in Bangkok and the exercise culture around them produces a distinct category of booking.
The running loop
The running and cycling loops here are longer than at Lumphini and less crowded, which draws people training seriously rather than casually.
The complaint
The complaint that follows is legs rather than back: calves, hamstrings, hips and occasionally feet, from distance running on hard surfaces in a difficult climate.
The treatment
Deep tissue worked on the legs is the right treatment, and it needs asking for specifically, because a therapist told only deep tissue will assume you mean neck and shoulders like almost everybody else.
The timing
Timing matters. A few hours after a run, or the following morning, is considerably more useful than immediately afterwards when everything is still hot and inflamed.
What Chatuchak books
Traditional Thai, the resident default
Traditional Thai leads among residents, as it does across most of northern Bangkok, and it is the default choice in a district whose population is largely Thai.
Deep tissue, split between runners and commuters
Deep tissue arrives from two directions here. Park runners want it on the legs, and weekday commuters want it on the neck and shoulders, and those are genuinely different hours. Saying which you are is more useful in this district than in most.
Oil massage after a market day
Straight oil massage spikes at the weekend from people who have spent six hours walking round a market of fifteen thousand stalls in the heat. The complaint is feet, calves and lower back, and it is the single most predictable booking pattern we have anywhere.
Office syndrome from the towers
Office syndrome comes from the buildings around the interchange and behaves as it does in any commercial pocket, though the volume is modest compared with the residential bookings.
Booking after a day at the market
Walking the weekend market is more physically demanding than almost anybody expects, and the booking that follows it is one of the more predictable requests we handle.
Book for the evening rather than the middle of the day. You will be there longer than you planned, everybody always is, and the roads clear after seven anyway.
Take the ninety rather than the sixty. Six hours on your feet on concrete puts the complaint in your legs, and they will absorb half an hour before she reaches anything else.
Tell her the trouble is in your feet and calves. Everywhere in Bangkok the default assumption is back and shoulders, and after a market day that would be the wrong hour entirely.
Book from the market rather than when you get back, giving yourself an hour. It saves the wait at the other end and the estimate is more reliable once the evening has started.
Drink some water before she arrives. Six hours in that heat is more dehydrating than it feels, and a treatment on top of it is better with some water in you.
Therapists who cover Chatuchak
Every one of them trained in Thailand and holds a Ministry of Public Health licence. You get told who is coming before they knock.
The bus terminal, and the arrival pattern
Mo Chit bus terminal sits a little north of the market and handles services to the whole north and north east of Thailand, which puts a specific population into this district.
People arriving off an overnight coach from Chiang Mai, Udon Thani or Nong Khai land here early in the morning, frequently having been in a seat for ten hours. A share of them book a treatment before doing anything else, and it is a sensible instinct.
For that booking the right choice is a straightforward oil massage rather than anything deep. Ten hours immobile in a coach seat produces stiffness and swelling rather than knots, and heavy pressure is not what the body needs first thing.
The practical point is accommodation. Book once you have a room rather than from the terminal, because we need somewhere to come to and a decision made in a bus station concourse tends to be a rushed one.
The buildings here
Four kinds of address take bookings in this district and they are spread over a wider area than the station suggests.
Condominium towers
The condominium towers near Mo Chit and Chatuchak Park are recent, well managed and straightforward, with staffed desks and card-controlled lifts.
Older apartment blocks
Older apartment blocks behind the main roads have a guard rather than a reception, are frequently walk-ups, and need a soi number and a floor.
Hotels
Hotel stock here is limited and mostly mid-range, aimed at market visitors and coach passengers rather than at business travellers.
Housing further out
Further out toward Kasetsart and the northern suburbs it becomes housing estates and detached homes, and the guidance on the Lat Phrao page about gates and estates applies equally.
Or Tor Kor, and the other market nobody mentions
Across the road from the weekend market sits Or Tor Kor, a covered fresh market that runs every day and is a completely different operation from the one that draws the crowds at the weekend.
It matters for two reasons. The first is that it gives this district a working population that is here on Tuesdays as well as Sundays: traders, delivery staff and buyers who keep early hours and produce the physical-work complaints that go with lifting and standing.
The second is navigational. The two markets are frequently confused, they sit on opposite sides of a major road, and being sent to the wrong one is a genuine ten minute error on a market day when nothing is moving. If you use a market as your landmark, name which.
Bookings from the Or Tor Kor side tend to be early: traders finishing in the late morning, wanting deep tissue on the lower back and forearms rather than anything scented. It is the same pattern that shows up around Khlong Toei and Huai Khwang.
Where Chatuchak ends
Southward the road runs down through Saphan Khwai to Ari and eventually Victory Monument, and the character turns low-rise and residential very quickly once you are past the park.
Eastward across the interchange is Lat Phrao, which is a road rather than a district and is covered on its own page.
Northward it continues toward Kasetsart University, Ratchayothin and the northern suburbs, which we cover with a longer arrival window.
Westward it heads toward Bang Sue and the new central station, an area of large infrastructure and considerable ongoing construction.
The market and the park between them occupy so much of the middle of this district that the residential parts are pushed out to the edges, which is why the arrival windows here look longer than the station distances suggest.
Price, and the market day question
The most common question here is whether a Saturday booking costs more, given that the district is at its most difficult on market days. It does not.
One published price applies across the whole city, every day of the week and every hour of the day. A Saturday afternoon treatment in the middle of the market crowds costs exactly what a Tuesday morning one costs.
What the market day changes is the wait, and we quote that honestly rather than pretending a Saturday is the same as a Tuesday. If you book for two in the afternoon on a market weekend, we will tell you the real number rather than the one we would like it to be.
No minimum applies and no deposit is held at any stage. She is paid once the treatment has finished, in cash, by card or by PromptPay, and the amount matches your confirmation message down to the last baht.
Everywhere we go in Chatuchak
Find yours below. If it is not here we almost certainly still come, so send the building name and we will confirm in a minute.
Stations
- BTS Mo Chit
- MRT Chatuchak Park
- MRT Kamphaeng Phet
- MRT Phahon Yothin
- BTS Saphan Khwai
- Mo Chit bus terminal
- MRT Lat Phrao
Streets and sois
- Phahonyothin Road
- Kamphaeng Phet Road
- Kamphaeng Phet 2 Road
- Vibhavadi Rangsit Road
- Soi Phahonyothin 18
- Ratchadaphisek Road
- Lat Phrao Road
Landmarks
- Chatuchak Weekend Market
- Chatuchak Park
- Queen Sirikit Park
- Mo Chit bus terminal
- JJ Mall
- Or Tor Kor Market
- Kasetsart University
- Union Mall
Buildings we travel to
Listed as places we deliver to. We have no arrangement with any of them and nothing here should be read as one.
Hotels
- Centara Grand at Central Plaza Ladprao
- Bangkok Midtown Hotel
- Vipa Hotel
- Chatrium Residence Sathon
Condominiums and residences
- Equinox Phahol Vibha
- The Line Phahonyothin Park
- Onyx Phaholyothin
- Lumpini Ville Phahon Suthisarn
- Whizdom Avenue Ratchada Ladprao
Who books in Chatuchak
- Weekend market visitors
- Six hours on their feet on concrete. Feet, calves and lower back, and the most predictable booking we take.
- Park runners
- Longer loops than Lumphini and a more serious training crowd. Deep tissue on the legs rather than the back.
- Condominium residents
- The towers by the stations. Weekday bookings and the reason this district is quiet Monday to Friday.
- Overnight coach arrivals
- Off a ten hour seat from the north at breakfast time. Straightforward oil massage rather than anything deep.
- Suburban households
- Out toward Kasetsart and the northern edges, with gates and estates and a longer arrival window.
Questions about Chatuchak
- Is Saturday a bad day to book here?
- The middle of it is the worst window we have anywhere in the city. The roads around the market are effectively static from mid-morning to late afternoon. Book before about ten in the morning or after about seven in the evening and the district behaves normally.
- Does the market affect a therapist arriving by train?
- Much less, which is why rail is how we route it. Both lines serve this district and neither is affected by the road, though both are extremely crowded on market days. The slow part is the last few hundred metres on foot through the crowd.
- I have walked the market all day. What should I book?
- Ninety minutes rather than sixty, and say your feet and calves are the problem. Six hours on concrete in that heat puts the complaint in your legs, and the default assumption everywhere in Bangkok is back and shoulders, which would be the wrong hour entirely.
- I run in the park. Is that a different booking?
- Yes, and worth specifying. Deep tissue on the legs, not the back. The loops here are longer than Lumphini and draw a more serious training crowd, so the complaint is calves, hamstrings and hips. A few hours after the run is better than straight afterwards.
- Is a Saturday treatment more expensive?
- No. One price applies every day of the week and every hour of the day, so a market day booking costs exactly what a Tuesday morning one does. What the market changes is the wait, and we quote that honestly rather than pretending the two days are the same.
- I have just come off an overnight coach. What is best?
- Plain oil massage, and nothing deep. Ten hours immobile in a coach seat leaves you stiff and swollen rather than knotted, and heavy pressure is the wrong answer to that. Wait until you have a room before booking, since we need an address to come to.
- Is it quieter here midweek?
- Completely different. Monday to Friday this is an ordinary northern Bangkok district with normal roads and a thirty to fifty-five minute window that holds. If you live here, arranging your regular treatment for a weekday is quicker and gets you a better choice of therapist.
- I live out toward Kasetsart. Do you come?
- Yes, with a longer window. Out that way it becomes housing estates and detached homes, so the guidance about naming the estate, giving a physical description and having your phone to hand for the guard applies just as it does along Lat Phrao.
Near Chatuchak
Lat Phrao
One road with sois numbered past 130, and the number is the only part of the address that helps.
Ari
Low-rise lanes, good coffee, and the highest concentration of people in Bangkok who work for themselves.
Victory Monument
A roundabout with four hospitals and several thousand students around it. This district is never quiet.
Huai Khwang
The night market district. Genuinely awake at four in the morning, unlike anywhere else.
Phaya Thai
The Airport Rail Link terminus. Arrivals, departures, and a considerable number of hospital beds.