Outcall massage on the riverside
The Chao Phraya carries the grandest hotels in Bangkok, and getting to them is the one part of this city where the boat matters more than the road.
- Arrival
- 30 to 50 minutes
- Hours
- 24 hours, every day
- Therapists
- Licensed, named first
- From
- THB 900, pay after
Where the boat matters more than the road, and the hotels are the oldest in the city.
The riverside is not a district in the usual sense. It is a strip along both banks of the Chao Phraya, running roughly from the Krung Thon bridge in the north down past Saphan Taksin to the south, and what defines it is the water rather than any road.
What Riverside 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.
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.
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.
DetailsCouples massage
Two therapists, same room, at the same time, both of you finishing together. Tell us what the room has and we will arrange the second place to lie.
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.
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.
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.
DetailsAlong that strip sits the oldest and grandest hotel stock in Bangkok. Properties that have been operating for over a century, along with newer luxury towers built to take advantage of the same view, and between them they hold a very large number of premium rooms occupied almost entirely by visitors.
The transport situation is genuinely different from the rest of the city. BTS Saphan Taksin connects to Sathorn Pier, and from there the river boats run north and south to piers serving individual hotels. Several properties operate their own shuttle boats. For a good number of these addresses the water is the fastest way in and occasionally the only sensible one.
On the far bank is Thonburi, where several of the largest riverside hotels sit, along with ICONSIAM and a growing cluster of newer development. Crossing is by boat or by one of a small number of bridges, and the difference between those two options can be half an hour.
For us this is a visitor district almost exclusively. The bookings are hotel rooms, the guests are here for a few nights, and the treatment mix is closer to a resort than to a Bangkok neighbourhood.
Which bank, and why it is the first question
The single most important thing in a riverside booking is which side of the Chao Phraya you are on, and it is the thing most people leave out because from a hotel room the answer feels obvious.
Bridges across the river in this stretch are few and far apart. A property on the Thonburi bank and one on the Bang Rak bank can be a couple of hundred metres apart as the crow flies and a genuine thirty to forty minutes apart by car, because the route runs up to a bridge, across, and back down the other side.
The boats change that completely. A cross-river ferry takes a few minutes, and the hotel shuttle boats are quicker still. Where a service is running and a therapist can use it, an address on the far bank is no further away than one on this side.
So the practical answer is to tell us the bank and the hotel name, and we will work out whether she is coming by road or by water. What we cannot do is guess, because guessing wrong is not a five minute error here.
Two hotels facing each other across the water can be forty minutes apart by road. The bank is the address.
The hotel shuttle boats, and their timetable
Most of the large riverside hotels run their own shuttle boat from Sathorn Pier, and for a guest it is usually the quickest way home. For an arriving therapist it is the same, with one caveat that catches people out.
Those services stop. The exact hours vary by property and change without much notice, but a good number finish somewhere between eleven at night and midnight. After that the only options are the road route, which may mean the long way round to a bridge, or a private longtail if one is available.
The practical effect is that a booking at ten in the evening and a booking at half past midnight can have very different arrival windows for the same hotel on the far bank. It is one of the few places in Bangkok where late is slower rather than faster.
If you are on the Thonburi side and thinking about a late treatment, book before the boats stop rather than after. If it is already past midnight, tell us and we will quote you the road figure honestly rather than the daytime one.
The grand hotels, and what reception does
The accommodation here skews further upmarket than anywhere else in Bangkok, and the front desks are correspondingly professional.
The historic properties
The historic riverside hotels run visitor procedures that are precise, courteous and entirely unremarkable in practice. Identification at reception, a call to the room, sometimes an escort as far as the lift lobby. Nobody comments and nobody will ask what the appointment is for.
Modern luxury towers
The newer luxury towers are the same in substance with more technology attached. Card-controlled lifts are common, which simply means somebody sends the lift or comes down.
Riverside serviced apartments
There are serviced apartments along both banks aimed at longer stays, and they are the easiest buildings here. They exist for residents who have visitors.
Smaller boutiques
Smaller boutique hotels, particularly in the older streets set back from the water, are the most relaxed of all and frequently ask nothing at all.
What the riverside books
Aromatherapy, and the holiday pattern
Aromatherapy leads here by a wide margin and the reason is that this is a leisure district rather than a working one. Nobody is treating an injury from a desk. They are on holiday in an expensive room and they want the most pleasant hour on the menu, which is what the scented blends deliver.
Traditional Thai, requested by name
Traditional Thai is second and it is requested by name far more often than anywhere else we cover. Visitors have come to Thailand and want the Thai treatment, and a riverside hotel room is a comfortable place to receive it once the bed is made up with her own sheet.
Couples and four hands
Couples and four hands do better on the riverside than in any other district. The rooms are large, people are here together rather than alone on business, and a treatment for two is exactly the sort of thing a holiday budget stretches to.
Oil massage after a day on foot
Straight oil massage arrives in the evening from people who have spent eight hours walking round temples and markets in the heat. The complaint is feet, calves and lower back, and it is a different hour from the desk-worker version of the same treatment.
Therapists who cover Riverside
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 day of sightseeing
Most riverside bookings are made by people on a short holiday, and the commonest mistake is one of timing rather than treatment.
Book for after the sightseeing rather than before it. A massage followed by six hours of walking undoes the treatment; the reverse does not.
Leave an hour after you get back rather than booking for the minute you expect to arrive. Boats run late, temples close at inconvenient times, and a therapist waiting in a lobby while you are still on a ferry helps nobody.
Take the ninety rather than the sixty if you have walked all day. The feet and calves alone will absorb thirty minutes, and the sixty minute version ends up being a choice between your legs and your back.
Eat afterwards, not immediately before. This is a district full of very good restaurants and the temptation runs the other way, but a heavy meal and a treatment do not sit together comfortably.
If you are here for three nights and want two treatments, space them. The second is better on the third day than on the second.
The far bank, and how far it really is
Thonburi holds several of the largest riverside hotels and the question of how long it takes to reach them has four different answers depending on the hour.
By hotel shuttle
By hotel shuttle from Sathorn Pier it is a few minutes and the far bank is effectively no further away than the near one. This is the normal case during the day and evening.
By public ferry
By public cross-river ferry it is also quick and it runs later than most people expect, though it lands at public piers rather than at hotel doors, so there may be a short walk at the other end.
By road
By road it is a different proposition entirely. Bridges are few, the approaches are congested, and a journey that takes five minutes on the water can take forty in a car.
After the boats stop
Once the shuttles have finished, road is generally the only option and the estimate goes up accordingly. Tell us the time you want and we will quote the figure that actually applies rather than the daytime one.
Where the riverside starts and stops
The strip runs a long way and the character changes along it, so it is worth saying which part of the water you are on.
The southern end around Sathorn Pier and Saphan Taksin is the busiest and the best connected, with the BTS meeting the boats. Anything in that pocket is straightforward to reach at any hour.
North of there, through the older hotel stretch toward River City and beyond, the properties are grander and more spread out, and several are reached most easily by their own boat rather than from the road behind them.
Inland from the water the district becomes Charoen Krung and Bang Rak within a couple of streets, and those pages describe the shophouses and the creative quarter better than this one does. If your accommodation does not face the water, that is probably where you are.
On the Thonburi bank the strip runs from the ICONSIAM area southward, and behind the hotels it becomes ordinary residential Thonburi very quickly indeed.
What a room costs here, and what we cost
This district has the highest average room rate in Bangkok, and guests reasonably assume every service attached to it is priced accordingly. Ours is not.
One price list covers the whole city. Sixty minutes of aromatherapy is twelve hundred baht in a riverside suite exactly as it is in a studio at On Nut, and there is no premium for the address, the hotel or the hour of the night.
That gap is worth understanding because the alternative is right downstairs. The spas in these hotels are genuinely excellent and they are priced at several times our rate, and a treatment ordered to your room through the concierge will usually carry a service charge and VAT on top of the menu price.
What the hotel spa gives you is the setting, the facilities and the ritual around the treatment. What we give you is a licensed therapist in your own room at a fraction of the price. Both are reasonable choices and they are not the same purchase.
Everywhere we go in Riverside
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 Saphan Taksin
- Sathorn Pier
- Chao Phraya Express Boat
- BTS Surasak
- MRT Hua Lamphong
- ICONSIAM Pier
- BTS Krung Thon Buri
Streets and sois
- Charoen Krung Road
- Charoen Nakhon Road
- Soi Charoen Krung 30
- Soi Charoen Krung 36
- Soi Charoen Krung 40
- Si Phraya Road
- Somdet Chao Phraya Road
Landmarks
- Sathorn Pier
- River City Bangkok
- ICONSIAM
- Asiatique The Riverfront
- Wat Arun
- Warehouse 30
- Bangrak Market
- Portuguese Embassy
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
- Mandarin Oriental Bangkok
- Shangri-La Bangkok
- The Peninsula Bangkok
- Millennium Hilton Bangkok
- Avani Plus Riverside Bangkok
- Chatrium Hotel Riverside
- Royal Orchid Sheraton
- Anantara Riverside Bangkok
- Capella Bangkok
- Four Seasons Hotel Bangkok at Chao Phraya River
Condominiums and residences
- The River Condominium
- Menam Residences
- Baan Chao Praya
- Supalai River Place
- Magnolias Waterfront Residences
Who books in Riverside
- Holiday guests
- The dominant group. Aromatherapy and traditional Thai, booked for the evening after a day out.
- Couples
- Two therapists in one large room, which the riverside books more of than any other district we cover.
- Sightseers
- Feet, calves and lower back after eight hours walking round temples in the heat. Usually the ninety rather than the sixty.
- Far-bank guests
- Thonburi hotels, reached by shuttle boat while the services run and by road once they have stopped.
- Long-stay residents
- Riverside serviced apartments, the easiest buildings here and the only real source of repeat bookings along the water.
- Late arrivals by road
- Once the shuttle boats stop, the far bank switches to a road journey and the estimate goes up rather than down.
Questions about Riverside
- Which bank am I on, and does it matter?
- It matters more than anything else you can tell us. Bridges in this stretch are few, so two hotels facing each other across the water can be thirty or forty minutes apart by road even though they look adjacent. Give us the bank and the hotel name and we will work out whether she comes by road or by boat.
- Can she use the hotel shuttle boat?
- Usually, and it is normally the quickest route. The thing to know is that most of those services stop somewhere between eleven at night and midnight. After that the road is the only option, which on the far bank can mean the long way round to a bridge.
- Is a late booking slower here?
- On the Thonburi side, yes, which is the reverse of the rest of Bangkok. Once the shuttle boats finish, the arrival window lengthens considerably. If you want a late treatment on the far bank, book before the boats stop or accept the road estimate.
- How does this compare with the hotel spa?
- The spas along this stretch are among the best in the city and they are priced at several times our rate, with a service charge and VAT usually added when a treatment is ordered to the room. What they sell is the setting and the facilities. What we sell is a licensed therapist in your own room for a fraction of it.
- I have been walking all day. What should I book?
- Ninety minutes rather than sixty, and say that your feet and calves are the problem. Eight hours on your feet in this heat puts the complaint in your legs rather than your shoulders, and the sixty minute version forces a choice between the two.
- Should I book before or after sightseeing?
- Afterwards. A treatment followed by six hours of walking undoes most of what it achieved, whereas the other way round it lasts. Leave an hour after you expect to be back rather than booking for your arrival time, because boats and temples both keep their own schedule.
- Can two of us have treatments at the same time?
- Yes, and this district books more of that than anywhere else in Bangkok. Two therapists work simultaneously in the same room and you finish together. The rooms along this stretch are large and very often have two beds, which makes it the easiest arrangement we handle.
- Do you come to the hotels on Charoen Nakhon and around ICONSIAM?
- Yes, and that stretch is served by shuttle boats from Sathorn Pier as well as by road. While the boats are running it is no further away than the near bank. Once they finish the journey reverts to the bridge route, so the hour you book at changes the answer more than the address does.
- Will the room take a traditional Thai session?
- Yes, and without anything to check first. We work the stretching on your bed, so the size of the room stops being the question it used to be. The rooms along this stretch are considerably larger than the Bangkok average in any case, which makes them comfortable places to receive a two-hour treatment rather than merely adequate ones.
Near Riverside
Charoen Krung
The oldest paved road in the country, and the creative quarter that has grown back into its old shophouses.
Surasak
The quiet western end of the business district, where the towers thin out and the old shophouses begin.
Silom
The old financial district. Packed on a Tuesday, deserted on a Sunday.
Sathorn
Embassies, corporate towers and the densest run of five-star rooms in Bangkok.
Thonburi
The far bank. A river to cross, canals behind it, and half the rent of the other side.