Outcall massage at Pratunam
Pratunam is the wholesale clothing market of Bangkok, and it runs on trade hours rather than office ones, which makes it the earliest-waking district we cover.
- Arrival
- 25 to 40 minutes
- Hours
- 24 hours, every day
- Therapists
- Licensed, named first
- From
- THB 900, pay after
The clothing trade starts at four in the morning, and so do some of our bookings.
Pratunam sits just north of the Ratchaprasong junction, across the Saen Saep canal, and it is where Thailand does its wholesale clothing trade. Platinum Fashion Mall, the Pratunam market itself and the surrounding blocks hold thousands of small units selling to retailers rather than to the public.
What Pratunam 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.
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.
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.
DetailsRelaxing 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.
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.
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.
DetailsFour hands massage
Two therapists working on you at once, in time with each other. Strange for about a minute, then very hard to think about anything at all.
DetailsThe district works on trade hours. Wholesale buyers arrive before dawn, deliveries run through the night, and by the time the shopping centres a few hundred metres south are opening, a full working day has already happened here.
The accommodation reflects the trade. A large number of mid-range and budget hotels catering to buyers from across Thailand and the region, several very large properties including one of the tallest hotels in the city, and a stock of older apartment blocks housing people who work in the market.
Baiyoke Tower dominates the skyline and is the landmark everyone uses. The canal runs along the southern edge with a boat service that most visitors never discover and most residents use daily.
For us this is a district with an unusual clock and a genuinely awkward street layout. The bookings come at hours nowhere else produces, and the market blocks are among the harder places in central Bangkok to drive into.
Trade hours, and the four in the morning booking
Almost every page on this site describes an evening business. Pratunam is the exception, and the shift is not marginal. The wholesale trade starts in the small hours, buyers come in from the provinces overnight, and the market is at its busiest well before the rest of the city has woken up.
That produces bookings at hours we see nowhere else. Late morning and early afternoon are genuinely busy here, from traders who have finished their working day and want to sleep. Four and five in the morning requests also happen, usually from someone who has been unloading stock all night.
The treatments are physical-work treatments. Lower back from lifting, shoulders and forearms from carrying, and legs from standing on a concrete floor for eight or ten hours. Deep tissue and traditional Thai, and very rarely anything scented.
The conventional evening peak still exists, driven by the hotels rather than the market, but it is milder here than in any other central district. If you want a therapist at eight in the evening in Pratunam, that is one of the easier asks in the city.
By seven in the morning a Pratunam trader has done a full shift. The evening peak here is at noon.
Getting into the market blocks
The market area is genuinely difficult to reach by vehicle and it is worth being straightforward about that rather than pretending otherwise.
The main roads
Petchaburi and Ratchaprarop are wide roads and anything fronting onto them is straightforward. Those are the easy addresses in this district.
Inside the market
Inside the market the lanes are narrow, permanently occupied by stalls, trolleys and stock, and frequently impassable to anything wider than a person. She will walk in, which is fine and normal, and it adds several minutes.
Delivery hours
Delivery hours make it worse. During the overnight and early morning restocking the lanes are full of goods being moved, and a route that takes four minutes at midday can take fifteen at five in the morning.
The best approach
The reliable approach is to name the nearest market entrance or the nearest main road rather than an internal address. She walks in from there, and if you can meet her at that entrance on a first booking it saves everyone time.
What Pratunam books
Deep tissue for the trade
Deep tissue leads here and the customer is usually somebody who has spent the night moving stock. Lower back, shoulders and forearms, occasionally hands, and the pressure asked for is at the heavier end. This is a district where people know exactly what they want done and where.
Traditional Thai, the local default
Traditional Thai is a very close second and it is the default among the Thai trading population, who make up most of the residents. It is asked for by name, and the stretching for legs and lower back suits the complaint the work produces.
Oil massage in the hotels
Straight oil massage comes from the hotels rather than the market. Buyers in from the provinces or the region for two or three nights, often walking the market all day, and looking for something uncomplicated at the end of it.
Office syndrome, rarer than you would think
Office syndrome barely registers here, which is unusual for a central district. There are very few desks in Pratunam and the complaints reflect physical work rather than sedentary work.
Baiyoke and the tall hotels
Baiyoke Tower II is the landmark of this district and for many years was the tallest building in the country. It contains a very large hotel, and along with several other substantial properties nearby it makes Pratunam a bigger hotel district than its reputation suggests.
These are not five-star properties in the main. They are large mid-range hotels serving trade buyers, tour groups and budget-conscious visitors, and the rooms are functional rather than generous.
It used to matter for one treatment. Traditional Thai was the one that asked something of the room, and it no longer does: we work it on the bed along with everything else, so a compact room at this end of the district takes the whole menu without anything being moved.
The desks in these hotels are relaxed and used to guests coming and going at all hours, which suits a district where the working day starts before dawn. A visitor at five in the morning is unremarkable here in a way it would not be in Sathorn.
The canal, and the boat nobody mentions
The Saen Saep canal runs along the southern edge of this district with a pier at Pratunam, and the boat service on it is one of the fastest ways to cross this part of Bangkok. It is also almost entirely unknown to visitors.
For an arrival it occasionally matters, because a therapist coming from the Ramkhamhaeng or Thonglor direction may well use it rather than the road, and the boat is unaffected by the traffic above.
The service does not run all night, which is the relevant caveat. Late bookings revert to the road, and given that this district is awkward to drive into, the estimate at two in the morning is a little longer than the one at two in the afternoon.
None of this needs any action from you. It is offered as an explanation of why an arrival here sometimes beats its estimate comfortably and sometimes sits at the top of the range for no visible reason.
Therapists who cover Pratunam
Every one of them trained in Thailand and holds a Ministry of Public Health licence. You get told who is coming before they knock.
Booking around a trade trip
A large share of the hotel guests here are buyers rather than tourists, in for two or three days to work the market, and that produces a specific pattern worth planning for.
Book for the end of your buying day rather than the evening. If you started at six in the morning, the useful treatment is at two in the afternoon rather than at nine at night.
Take the ninety if you have walked the market all day. The legs and lower back will absorb most of an hour on their own.
Ask for deep tissue and say the cause. Carrying sample bags round a market for eight hours is a specific complaint and a therapist told what produced it works the right muscles rather than the obvious ones.
Book the second treatment before you need it if you are here for three days or more. Availability here is good, but the middle of the day is genuinely busy in this district and that is when you will want it.
Tell us the hotel rather than the market stall. Obvious, but people in the middle of a buying trip frequently send us where they are rather than where they are staying.
The residential side
Behind the trade there is a real residential population and it books more consistently than the hotels do.
Market worker housing
A good deal of the housing is occupied by people who work in the market, often in older buildings very close to it, and those addresses are the hardest in the district to reach by vehicle.
Older apartment blocks
The older apartment blocks along the wider roads are easier and hold a mixed population of long-term residents, some of whom have been here for decades.
Newer condominiums
There are newer condominium towers at the edges of the district, particularly toward Phetchaburi and Ratchathewi, and those behave like any modern building with a proper lobby and a visitor register.
Access
For all of the residential addresses the useful details are the same: nearest main road, nearest market entrance if relevant, floor, and whether there is a lift.
Where Pratunam ends
Southward across the canal is Ratchaprasong, which is a few hundred metres away and a completely different proposition of five-star hotels and shopping centres. The two districts share a border and nothing else.
Westward it runs toward Phaya Thai and the Airport Rail Link, and northward toward Victory Monument, both of which have their own pages and both of which are more residential than this.
Eastward along Phetchaburi the character stays commercial for some distance before turning into the Ratchathewi and Makkasan area. That stretch is covered on the Ratchathewi page.
The canal is the boundary that actually matters. North of it is trade hours, narrow lanes and physical work. South of it is hotels, malls and holidays. Getting the side right tells us more about your booking than the postcode does.
Price, and a district that asks about it
Pratunam is a wholesale district and negotiation is the normal way business is done here, so we get asked about discounts more often than anywhere else in the city. The answer is that there are none, and it is worth explaining why rather than simply declining.
We publish one price for each treatment and it applies everywhere in Bangkok at every hour. That means the figure you are quoted in the confirmation message is the figure the therapist asks for at the end, with nothing added for the district, the hour of the night or the difficulty of the address.
The corollary is that it does not come down either. A fixed published price protects the person who does not haggle as much as it constrains the person who does, and in a trade district that is a deliberate choice rather than an oversight.
There is no minimum and no deposit, and Ratchaprasong sits inside the free radius so nothing is added for the journey. If the sixty minute treatment is what you want, that is a complete transaction and nobody will push you toward a longer one.
Everywhere we go in Pratunam
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 Chit Lom
- BTS Ratchathewi
- Airport Rail Link Phaya Thai
- BTS Phaya Thai
- Pratunam Pier
- Saen Saep canal boat
- BTS Siam
Streets and sois
- Petchaburi Road
- Ratchaprarop Road
- Ratchadamri Road
- Soi Petchaburi 15
- Soi Ratchaprarop 3
- Phaya Thai Road
- Soi Rangnam
Landmarks
- Platinum Fashion Mall
- Pratunam Market
- Baiyoke Tower II
- Indra Square
- Pantip Plaza
- Saen Saep canal
- City Complex
- Century The Movie Plaza
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
- Baiyoke Sky Hotel
- Amari Watergate Bangkok
- Novotel Bangkok Platinum Pratunam
- Indra Regent Hotel
- Berkeley Hotel Pratunam
- Grand Diamond Suites Hotel
- Asia Hotel Bangkok
Condominiums and residences
- Baan Rajprasong
- Pratunam City Complex residences
- The Complete Ratchaprarop
- Lumpini Suite Petchaburi
- Ideo Q Ratchathewi
Who books in Pratunam
- Market traders
- Finished a shift that started before dawn. Late morning and early afternoon bookings, deep tissue, heavy pressure.
- Wholesale buyers
- In from the provinces or the region for two or three nights, walking the market all day, staying in the mid-range hotels.
- Overnight stock handlers
- Four and five in the morning requests, which almost no other district produces.
- Market worker households
- Older buildings close to the lanes, the hardest addresses here to reach by vehicle.
- Edge-of-district residents
- Newer condominiums toward Phetchaburi and Ratchathewi, with proper lobbies and easy access.
Questions about Pratunam
- Can I really book at five in the morning?
- Yes, and in this district it is not unusual. The wholesale trade runs overnight, so a share of the local population finishes work when the rest of the city is still asleep. It is one of the few areas where an early morning request is routine rather than exceptional.
- When is Pratunam busiest for you?
- Late morning and early afternoon, which is the reverse of everywhere else. Traders who started before dawn are finishing then. The conventional evening peak exists here but it is mild, so eight in the evening is one of the easier slots in the city to fill in this district.
- My hotel is inside the market. Can she get to it?
- Yes, on foot. The lanes in the market are narrow and full of stalls and stock, so a vehicle will not get close and she walks the last part. Name the nearest market entrance or main road rather than an internal address, and meeting her there on a first booking saves time.
- Is my hotel room big enough for traditional Thai?
- Frequently not, and this is a district where it is worth checking. The rooms here are functional rather than generous and the floor stretch needs roughly two metres by one of clear space. Send the hotel name when you book and we will tell you plainly whether the room will take it or whether a bed treatment is the better call.
- I have been carrying sample bags round the market all day. What helps?
- Deep tissue, and tell her what caused it. Lower back, shoulders and forearms is the standard pattern from a buying day, and a therapist who knows the cause works those rather than assuming a desk complaint. Take the ninety if you can, since the legs will absorb most of an hour by themselves.
- Do you negotiate on price?
- No, and in a wholesale district that is worth explaining rather than just declining. One published price applies across the whole city at every hour, with nothing added for the district, the time of night or a difficult address, and nothing taken off either. It protects the person who does not haggle.
- Is there a minimum booking?
- None. Sixty minutes is the shortest treatment and it is a complete transaction on its own. There is no minimum spend and no deposit, and nobody will push you toward a longer session than you asked for.
- Is a late night booking slower here?
- A little. The canal boat is a genuinely fast route into this district and it does not run all night, so after it stops the journey reverts to the road, which around the market is the awkward part. Expect the upper end of the window in the small hours.
Near Pratunam
Ratchaprasong
The intersection. More hotel rooms within four hundred metres than anywhere in Thailand.
Ratchathewi
One stop from Siam and half the rent. The canal, the guesthouses and the cheapest central beds.
Phaya Thai
The Airport Rail Link terminus. Arrivals, departures, and a considerable number of hospital beds.
Victory Monument
A roundabout with four hospitals and several thousand students around it. This district is never quiet.
Siam
The retail interchange. Enormous footfall, almost nobody actually lives here.