I live in a house, not a flat. Where does the massage happen?

Wherever you would rather. An upstairs bedroom is the usual choice and works exactly like a hotel room, since everything is worked on the bed and nothing has to be cleared to make room for it. A spare room is the other option, and in a townhouse it is usually the quietest room in the building, away from the stairs and the street. Pick the one you will actually relax in, and tell the therapist which floor it is on when she arrives so she is not guessing on the way up.

My estate has a guard at the gate. What happens?

He will stop her and ring the house, which takes about a minute provided somebody answers. Keep your phone with you rather than upstairs on silent around the arrival window. It is the single most common cause of a delay in a gated estate.

How do I describe a house that is hard to find?

Estate name, lane, house number, then one physical detail. The colour of the gate, a tree outside, the car in the drive. Numbering in these lanes is not always sequential and the plates are often faded, so the physical detail is frequently worth more than the number.

I want to book for my mother. What should I tell you?

Her age and anything medical, particularly blood pressure, diabetes, osteoporosis, joint replacements or a recent fall. For most older people we would steer away from the traditional Thai stretching regardless of the space available and suggest a gentle oil massage instead. Say what she speaks too.

Is an hour long enough given how far you travel?

It is entirely up to you and the price is per treatment rather than per journey. That said, most people out here book ninety minutes or more, on the reasoning that having waited for someone to arrive they would rather not be finishing forty minutes later.

How much notice should I give?

An hour in the evening, and the day before for a weekend afternoon. Mornings are the exception and a same-hour request at ten on a weekday is usually fine. The one window to avoid entirely is five to seven, which no amount of planning improves.

Is there a dog at the gate going to be a problem?

Not usually, and she will not be fazed by one. What helps is somebody coming down to the gate rather than calling from an upstairs window, because a dog doing its job cannot tell a massage therapist from anyone else who has turned up unannounced. Nobody needs the animal shut away.

Will the treatment work if the room has no air conditioning?

It will, though over ninety minutes it makes more difference than people expect. A fan is enough for most of the year. If the room you have chosen is not cooled, say so when you book and she will pace the work accordingly rather than discovering it halfway through.

Do you go further south toward Bang Na?

Yes, all the way down Soi 103 and out to the expressway interchange. It is a long journey and the window runs past an hour more often than not, so it is worth booking well ahead rather than on impulse. The price is unchanged.

Massage Udom Suk | Outcall Therapist, Sukhumvit 103

Where the expatriate corridor ends and suburban Bangkok begins.

Udom Suk is Sukhumvit Soi 103, and it is the point at which the character of this road changes for good. West of here the line is condominiums and foreigners. From Udom Suk eastward it is houses, townhouse estates, wide feeder roads and Thai families, and the proportion of our bookings that come from Thai customers rises sharply.

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.

Details

Soi 103 itself runs south from the main road for a considerable distance, eventually reaching the Bang Na area and the expressway. Along it are housing estates, schools, temples, a large market, and the sort of low commercial strip that serves a residential population rather than a visiting one. There are also newer condominium blocks near the station, but they are the minority rather than the pattern.

The housing here is genuinely different from anywhere further west. Two and three storey townhouses in gated estates, detached houses on plots, older shophouses with families living above them. That has practical consequences for a massage booking that a tower block does not, from where the therapist works to how she gets through the gate.

The people are settled. Families who bought here twenty years ago, grown children who never moved out, small business owners, and a smaller population of expatriates who came for the space and the schools rather than for a Sukhumvit postcode.

This is the far end of what we would call a straightforward journey. Forty to sixty minutes is realistic and we would rather say so plainly than quote something optimistic and disappoint you on a Friday evening.

Working in a house rather than a flat

Most of our work in Bangkok happens in a bedroom in an apartment, and the constraints are always the same: a bed, enough room to stand along one side of it, and a door. In a townhouse or a detached house those constraints disappear and different ones replace them.

The first is choosing the room, and it is worth thinking about before she arrives. An upstairs bedroom is the obvious answer and usually the right one, since every treatment is worked on a bed. The spare room is the other candidate, and in a townhouse it is usually the quietest room in the building. Pick whichever you will actually relax in, and whichever the rest of the household is least likely to walk through while you are lying face down.

The second is other people. A house frequently contains a family, and a treatment with relatives moving around outside the door is completely normal and nobody minds. If you would rather have the place quiet, the practical answer is the same as anywhere: book while the house is empty, which out here usually means mid-morning on a weekday.

The third is air conditioning. A lot of houses here have it in the bedrooms and not in the living areas, which matters over ninety minutes more than people expect. If the room you have chosen is not cooled, say so and she will work with it, but a fan at minimum makes a real difference to how the treatment feels.

In a house the question is not whether there is space. It is which room, and who else is in it.

Gated estates, and getting through the front gate

The housing types here each present a different obstacle at the entrance, and none of them is difficult once it is known about in advance.

Guarded estates

Most townhouse estates run a guard at the entrance who will stop a visitor and ring the house. That is the whole procedure and it takes a minute, provided somebody answers. If your phone is upstairs on silent it can take considerably longer.

Open lanes

Some lanes are open with no guard at all, which is easier but makes the house number the only thing to go on. Numbering in these lanes is not always sequential and the plates are frequently faded, so a description of the house is worth more than the number.

Shophouses

Older shophouses on the main sois are entered from the street directly. Straightforward, though the ground floor is often a business and the living space is above it, so say which floor.

What to send

Whichever it is, the useful message contains the estate name, the lane, the house number and one physical detail. The colour of the gate, the tree outside, the car in the drive. Out here that last detail saves more time than the number does.

What Udom Suk books

Traditional Thai leads, and by a wide margin

Traditional Thai is the most booked treatment in this district and its lead is larger than anywhere else on the line. The reason is the customer base rather than the housing. A majority-Thai clientele books the stretching because that is what a massage is understood to be, and books it at the length the tradition assumes, which is why two hours is ordinary here and ninety minutes is the exception.

Oil massage for the older members of the household

Straight oil massage is second, and a noticeable share of it is booked by adult children for a parent living in the same house. Gentler, no stretching, no deep pressure, and it is frequently the first massage that person has had at home rather than at a shop.

Deep tissue, and the driving pattern

Deep tissue arrives on weekday evenings and the cause is different from the districts nearer town. Fewer people out here commute by train and more of them drive, and an hour and a half in a car twice a day produces lower back complaints rather than the shoulder problems the BTS produces.

Longer treatments, because there is space

The ninety minute and two hour treatments do better here than the distance would suggest. Once somebody has waited fifty minutes for a therapist to arrive, a sixty minute session can feel like poor value, and most people here book longer as a matter of course.

Timing a booking this far out

Udom Suk is the point where booking ahead stops being optional and starts being sensible. None of what follows is a rule, but it is what the regulars here have worked out.

Give an hour of notice in the evening rather than asking for the next thirty minutes. That lets us send somebody already working in the east of the city instead of somebody starting from the middle of it, which is worth twenty minutes on its own.
Avoid five to seven on a weekday if you have any choice. That is the worst window on this stretch of road and no amount of planning improves it.
Book the morning if you want speed. Weekday mornings out here are quiet, the road is clear in this direction, and a same-hour request at ten is usually met.
For a weekend afternoon, ask the day before. Saturday and Sunday from about one o clock are the busiest hours of the week in this district and the slots do fill.
If it is raining hard, add half an hour to whatever we quoted. This part of the city drains slowly and the feeder roads off Sukhumvit are the first to go.

Tell us the age and anything medical. High blood pressure, diabetes, a recent fall, joint replacements, osteoporosis, or a heart condition all change what is appropriate, and for an older person the traditional Thai stretching is frequently the wrong choice whatever they have asked for. A gentle oil massage almost always is the right one.

Tell us the language. Every therapist speaks Thai and working English, so a Thai-speaking parent is straightforward, but it is worth knowing whether the person receiving the treatment will be able to say stop, softer or too hot to the person giving it.

Be there for the first one if you can. Not in the room, but in the house. It makes the introduction easier for everybody and it means somebody can answer a question the therapist would otherwise have to guess at.

After that it usually runs itself. A large share of our standing weekly bookings in this district started as one person arranging something for a relative who then simply kept it going.

Dogs, stairs and the other things a house has that a flat does not

Working in houses throws up a short list of practical things that never come up in a condominium, and every one of them is easier if it is mentioned when you book rather than discovered at the gate.

Dogs

A great many houses out here have a dog, and a dog that is doing its job will not distinguish between a massage therapist and anybody else arriving unannounced. Nobody needs the dog removed. It just helps enormously if somebody comes to the gate rather than shouting from an upstairs window.

Stairs and no lift

Three storey townhouses are the norm here and almost none of them have a lift. She is carrying oil and fresh linen up those stairs, so knowing the treatment is on the top floor is a courtesy rather than a requirement, and it stops anybody arriving out of breath.

Shoes and the front room

Shoes come off at the door in most Thai households and she will do that without being asked. If your house works differently, say so, because standing in a doorway working out the etiquette is an awkward thirty seconds for everybody.

Pets in the treatment room

Cats and small dogs will absolutely come and sit on the bed. Some people find that delightful and some do not, and the therapist will not presume either way, so tell her which at the start rather than halfway through.

Where Udom Suk stops

Westward the district runs back toward Punnawithi and On Nut, and the housing gradually returns to condominium towers as you approach the station at Soi 93. Those blocks behave like On Nut rather than like the houses here.

Eastward it continues to Bearing and then the boundary with Samut Prakan province. We cover all of it, and the arrival window at the far end runs past an hour more often than not.

Southward Soi 103 reaches down toward Bang Na and the expressway interchange. There is a lot of housing along that stretch, including several large estates, and it is genuinely a long way from central Bangkok. Book well ahead there rather than on impulse.

Northward the sois run up toward Srinakarin and the Sikarin Hospital area. That side has more commercial development and more recent condominium building, and the journey is marginally quicker than the equivalent distance to the south.

Everywhere we go in Udom Suk

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 Udom Suk
BTS Punnawithi
BTS Bang Na
BTS Bearing
BTS On Nut

Streets and sois

Sukhumvit Soi 103 (Udom Suk)
Soi Udom Suk 1 to 60
Soi Sukhumvit 101
Soi Sukhumvit 105
Soi Sukhumvit 107
Srinakarin Road
Bang Na Trat Road

Landmarks

Udom Suk Market
Sikarin Hospital
Bangkok Patana School
Big C Bang Na
Wat Sri Iam
Udom Suk Night Market
Central Bangna

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

Ramada Plaza by Wyndham Bangkok Sukhumvit 48
Best Western Plus Sukhumvit

Condominiums and residences

Ideo Sukhumvit 93
Aspire Sukhumvit 48
Lumpini Ville Sukhumvit 109
The Trust Residence
Baan Klang Muang
Elio Del Ray

Who books in Udom Suk

Settled Thai families: The largest group here, in townhouses and detached homes, and the reason traditional Thai leads so clearly.
Adult children booking for parents: More common in this district than anywhere else we cover. Gentle oil massage, and often a standing weekly slot afterwards.
Drivers rather than commuters: Lower back complaints from an hour and a half in a car twice a day, booked on weekday evenings.
Expatriate families: Came for the space and the international schools. Longer treatments and weekend afternoons.
Weekend households: Saturday and Sunday from about one o clock, the busiest window of the week out here.

Questions about Udom Suk

I live in a house, not a flat. Where does the massage happen?: Wherever you would rather. An upstairs bedroom is the usual choice and works exactly like a hotel room, since everything is worked on the bed and nothing has to be cleared to make room for it. A spare room is the other option, and in a townhouse it is usually the quietest room in the building, away from the stairs and the street. Pick the one you will actually relax in, and tell the therapist which floor it is on when she arrives so she is not guessing on the way up.
My estate has a guard at the gate. What happens?: He will stop her and ring the house, which takes about a minute provided somebody answers. Keep your phone with you rather than upstairs on silent around the arrival window. It is the single most common cause of a delay in a gated estate.
How do I describe a house that is hard to find?: Estate name, lane, house number, then one physical detail. The colour of the gate, a tree outside, the car in the drive. Numbering in these lanes is not always sequential and the plates are often faded, so the physical detail is frequently worth more than the number.
I want to book for my mother. What should I tell you?: Her age and anything medical, particularly blood pressure, diabetes, osteoporosis, joint replacements or a recent fall. For most older people we would steer away from the traditional Thai stretching regardless of the space available and suggest a gentle oil massage instead. Say what she speaks too.
Is an hour long enough given how far you travel?: It is entirely up to you and the price is per treatment rather than per journey. That said, most people out here book ninety minutes or more, on the reasoning that having waited for someone to arrive they would rather not be finishing forty minutes later.
How much notice should I give?: An hour in the evening, and the day before for a weekend afternoon. Mornings are the exception and a same-hour request at ten on a weekday is usually fine. The one window to avoid entirely is five to seven, which no amount of planning improves.
Is there a dog at the gate going to be a problem?: Not usually, and she will not be fazed by one. What helps is somebody coming down to the gate rather than calling from an upstairs window, because a dog doing its job cannot tell a massage therapist from anyone else who has turned up unannounced. Nobody needs the animal shut away.
Will the treatment work if the room has no air conditioning?: It will, though over ninety minutes it makes more difference than people expect. A fan is enough for most of the year. If the room you have chosen is not cooled, say so when you book and she will pace the work accordingly rather than discovering it halfway through.
Do you go further south toward Bang Na?: Yes, all the way down Soi 103 and out to the expressway interchange. It is a long journey and the window runs past an hour more often than not, so it is worth booking well ahead rather than on impulse. The price is unchanged.

A therapist to your door in Udom Suk

Message us with the building name and a time. Nothing is taken up front, and you pay the therapist when she has finished.

WhatsApp LINE

What Udom Suk books most

Traditional Thai massage

Relaxing oil massage

Deep tissue massage

Aromatherapy massage

Coconut oil massage

Office syndrome massage

Working in a house rather than a flat

Gated estates, and getting through the front gate

Guarded estates

Open lanes

Shophouses

What to send

What Udom Suk books

Timing a booking this far out

Therapists who cover Udom Suk

Bella

Nene

Somy

Lisa

Booking for somebody else in the household