Massage in Ekkamai, to your door
Ekkamai has the same shape as Thong Lo next door, a long soi running north off Sukhumvit, but a different crowd and a considerably calmer one.
- Arrival25 to 45 minutes
- Hours24 hours, every day
- TherapistsLicensed, named first
- FromTHB 900, pay after
Thong Lo without the price tag, and a bus station where the soi meets the road.
Ekkamai is Sukhumvit Soi 63. Like its neighbour it runs a long way north off the main road, it carries numbered sub-sois, and it is residential almost from end to end. What separates the two is money and noise: Ekkamai rents lower, builds taller and shouts less.
What Ekkamai 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.
Details
Aromatherapy 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.
Details
Office 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.
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Deep 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.
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Traditional 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.
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Coconut 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.
DetailsThe mouth of the soi is dominated by the Eastern Bus Terminal, which sends coaches to Pattaya, Rayong and the whole eastern seaboard. That gives this corner a transient population nowhere else on the residential stretch has, and it is why the hotel stock here is a mix of proper hotels and cheap guesthouses in a way Thong Lo simply is not.
Further up, past the bus station and the mall, the character settles into apartment blocks, older houses behind walls, small restaurants and a noticeably younger set of residents than the district next door. Creative work, remote work, and a lot of people on their second or third year in Bangkok rather than their tenth. The turnover is faster than Thong Lo and it shows in how many bookings here are somebody's first.
The practical shape of a booking here is close to Thong Lo. Distance up the soi is the main variable, the BTS stops only at the bottom, and the regulars outnumber the one-offs by a wide margin once you are past the first few hundred metres. What is different is that the first few hundred metres are busier here than they are next door.
The bus terminal end, and why it behaves differently
The first two hundred metres of Ekkamai are not really residential at all. The Eastern Bus Terminal sits right at the corner, Gateway Ekamai faces it across the soi, and the buildings in between are hotels, hostels and short-let rooms serving people who are catching a coach in the morning or arrived on one last night.
Bookings from that pocket look nothing like the rest of the district. They are single stays, made late, often by someone who has just come back from the coast and wants the bus journey worked out of their shoulders. Deep tissue and traditional Thai, rarely anything scented, and almost never a repeat. It is the only pocket of the district where we expect not to see somebody again.
It is also the fastest part of Ekkamai to reach, because it is directly at the station and directly on the main road. If you are in one of those hotels the estimate is closer to the Asok end of the scale than to the rest of this soi.
One practical warning about the terminal itself. It is a genuinely confusing block with several entrances and a car park that most map applications resolve to rather than the building you actually want. Send the hotel name, not a pin dropped near the coaches, or somebody will spend ten minutes among the buses.
Up the soi, where most of the work is
Beyond the mall the soi turns residential and stays that way for well over a kilometre, and the bookings shift with it from one-off to regular.
Ekkamai 1 to 12
The lower sub-sois are the densest part. Mid-rise condominiums, a good number of serviced apartments, and the restaurants that Ekkamai is actually known for locally. Arrival here is straightforward and the walk in from the main soi is short.
Past Ekkamai 12
Past Ekkamai 12 the buildings spread out, the lanes get narrower and the pavements come and go. It is quieter and pleasanter to live in, and it costs us another ten to fifteen minutes on the way. Say where you are and we will price the wait honestly rather than quoting the figure for the bottom of the soi and disappointing you with it.
The connecting lanes
Several lanes cut across to Thong Lo, Phra Khanong and up toward Phetchaburi. They are useful shortcuts on two wheels and useless in a car, which is occasionally why a therapist arrives faster than the estimate rather than slower. None of them are worth attempting yourself unless you already know which one comes out where.
What Ekkamai books
Oil and aromatherapy lead
Straight oil massage and aromatherapy take the largest share here, and the split between them is close enough that it moves around from one month to the next. It is a younger and more price-conscious district than Thong Lo, the sixty minute treatment outsells the ninety, and people book the uncomplicated thing more often than the specialised one.
Office syndrome, and the remote work pattern
Office syndrome work is unusually strong for a residential area, and it is a remote working pattern rather than an office one. Laptops at kitchen tables, mid-afternoon bookings on weekdays, and a lot of first-time customers who have finally admitted their neck is a problem.
Traditional Thai, further up the soi
Traditional Thai picks up as you go further up the soi and the apartments get bigger. In the compact units near the mall it is often the wrong choice for the room, and we will say so rather than send someone to find out.
Getting the address right on this soi
Ekkamai addresses go wrong more often than most, for a reason that has nothing to do with the district being complicated. The spelling is not settled.
Send the sub-soi number rather than the name of your lane. Ekkamai 10 is unambiguous; the same lane written out in Thai transliteration has three common spellings and a driver reading one of them may not recognise the other two.
Include the building name as well, because several of the newer condominiums here share the same first word and differ only in the number after it.
If your building sits on a lane off a sub-soi, say so explicitly. Those inner lanes are frequently unnamed, and the difference between the sub-soi and the lane behind it is another four or five minutes on foot.
Mention the floor if there is no lift. There is more old low-rise stock here than in the neighbouring districts and it is the one thing worth flagging in advance.
Therapists who cover Ekkamai
Every one of them trained in Thailand and holds a Ministry of Public Health licence. You get told who is coming before they knock.
Finding the entrance after dark
Ekkamai loses its street lighting quickly once you are off the sub-soi and into the lanes behind, and a fair number of buildings here present a gate rather than a lobby to the road. It is the single most common reason an arrival here runs a few minutes late.
The fix is a sentence when you book. Tell us whether the entrance is on the sub-soi itself or down a lane, whether there is a guard box, and whether the gate is the obvious one or the unmarked one beside it. Any of those saves more time than a precise pin does.
Newer condominiums are the easy case. They face the lane, they are lit, and the lobby is visible from outside. Older blocks and converted houses are the ones worth describing, particularly where the number on the gate has faded or was never there.
If you are on a lane with no name at all, which happens more here than in the neighbouring districts, the reliable instruction is the sub-soi plus how far down and which side. She will find it first time with that, and spend ten minutes without it.
What a first booking here usually looks like
Ekkamai takes more first-time customers than Thong Lo does, largely because the population turns over faster, so it is worth setting out what actually happens end to end.
You send a message with the sub-soi, the building, the treatment and roughly when. If you are unsure which treatment, describe what hurts instead and we will pick.
We reply with a therapist name, a price and an arrival window. Nothing is taken at this point and there is no deposit, so you are not committed to anything financially.
She arrives with a sheet, towels and the oil. All you provide is the bed and somewhere to wash her hands. There is no setup and nothing needs moving, whichever treatment you have booked.
You pay at the end, in cash, by card or by PromptPay, and the figure is the one in the confirmation message. If you want the same person again, ask her directly or tell us the name next time.
How Ekkamai compares with Thong Lo
People ask this constantly, usually because they are choosing between the two, so it is worth answering plainly on a page about massage. The soi shape is nearly identical and the transport situation is the same, one station at the mouth and nothing above it.
What differs is density and price. Ekkamai has more tall buildings and cheaper units, Thong Lo has more low-rise and more money. Ekkamai skews younger and more mixed; Thong Lo has the established Japanese community. For a booking, that shows up in the treatment mix and the length: Thong Lo takes longer sessions and more traditional Thai, Ekkamai takes shorter ones and more oil.
The arrival window is effectively the same for the equivalent distance up each soi. If somebody tells you one is faster to reach than the other, they are describing traffic on the day rather than a real difference.
Late bookings and the weekend
The evening peak here runs a little earlier than Thong Lo, generally between seven and ten, and it tails off faster. This is a district that gets up in the morning.
The exception is Friday and Saturday around the bar strip near the lower sub-sois, where bookings keep coming until well past midnight. If you are in that pocket at one in the morning we are still working and the wait is usually short, because the therapist is likely to be finishing something else nearby.
Sunday behaves like Thong Lo: quiet in the morning, busy from the middle of the afternoon, and weighted toward the longer treatments. It is the single best day of the week to book something over ninety minutes here without competing for the slot.
Everywhere we go in Ekkamai
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 Ekkamai
- BTS Phra Khanong
- BTS Thong Lo
- Eastern Bus Terminal
Streets and sois
- Sukhumvit Soi 63 (Ekkamai)
- Ekkamai 1 to Ekkamai 24
- Ekkamai 10
- Ekkamai 12
- Soi Sukhumvit 61
- Soi Sukhumvit 65
- Soi Pridi Banomyong
- Phetchaburi Road
Landmarks
- Gateway Ekamai
- Eastern Bus Terminal
- Big C Ekkamai
- Park Lane
- Bangkok Prep International School
- W District
- Major Cineplex Sukhumvit
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
- Grande Centre Point Sukhumvit 55
- Best Western Plus Sukhumvit
- Hotel Nikko Bangkok
- Adelphi Grande Sukhumvit
- Sacha Hotel Uno
Condominiums and residences
- Estella Ekkamai
- Noble Reveal
- Rhythm Ekkamai
- Ideo Blucove Sukhumvit
- Taka Haus Ekkamai 12
- The Line Sukhumvit 71
Who books in Ekkamai
- Remote workers
- Weekday afternoons, neck and shoulders, and usually a first booking rather than a repeat.
- Younger expat renters
- The mid-rise blocks on the lower sub-sois. Sixty minute treatments and price-aware.
- Coach passengers
- Hotels by the Eastern Bus Terminal, booking late after arriving back from the coast.
- Families further up the soi
- Past Ekkamai 12, weekend afternoons, and the longer sessions.
- Weekend late bookers
- The bar strip on the lower sub-sois, still booking past midnight on Friday and Saturday.
Questions about Ekkamai
I am staying by the Eastern Bus Terminal. Can you find me?
How do I write my address so it does not get misread?
Is Ekkamai slower to reach than Thong Lo?
Do you come past Ekkamai 12?
My apartment is small. Which treatment fits?
How late do you work in Ekkamai?
Is there a minimum booking on this soi?
What if I need to cancel?
Do you work on public holidays?
Can I book for a friend staying here?
Near Ekkamai
Thong Lo
One soi, two and a half kilometres deep. How far up it you live is the whole booking.
Phra Khanong
Where the rents fall off a cliff. A canal, a real market, and younger residents.
Phrom Phong
The Emporium end. Japanese families, the deepest daytime demand on the line.
On Nut
The first affordable stop, and thousands of condo units stacked around one station.
Sukhumvit
The road, not a district. Fifteen kilometres of it, so the soi number decides everything.
A therapist to your door in Ekkamai
Message us with the building name and a time. Nothing is taken up front, and you pay the therapist when she has finished.