Bangkok’s Most Unique Hotels

Having spent almost 10 months in Bangkok over the last two years, I’ve seen just about every temple, palace and museum I care to see. So this weekend, a little bored and tired of the smog, I decided to take a tour of some hotels. When you start touring hotels you know you’re a travel geek. I did some research and asked a few locals for suggestions and here’s what I found.

The Bangkok Tree House Hotel

The hotel’s website is straight forward and blunt “The Tree House is not for everyone. For your sake and ours, please read on to find out whether you and the Tree House are a compatible match. We won’t, don’t, can’t fumigate the area to get rid of insects and other local species. As we are in tropical country, we do have mosquitoes but the gentle river breeze helps makes insects less of a problem.” I love that they’re up front about what you’re going to get. You might think their rooms, or “nests” as they call them are a joke – but they’re not.

The hotel has a “View with a Room” nest – a completely open air room 23 feet above the ground.

Photograph from Hotel Website

The “Family Nest”

Photograph from Hotel Website

This nest has three rooms a bedroom, a living room area (which can sleep two) and a large bathroom. The rooftops of the Family Nest are green and can serve as outdoor patios.

The “Beehive Nest” – this is a three level room and the theme is an ode to bees. It sleep up to three people and also has a rooftop patio. They also have rooms inspired by ants and butterflies.

Photograph from Hotel Website

The next nest is perhaps the most unbelievable. The “River Nest” is a floating bed. Yep, that’s it, a floating bed. The hotel’s website says “It’s a unique but simple concept, float a bed on the gentle river and sleep there for the night. The tides rock you to sleep and the morning sun rise is your alarm clock.” The website notes that room availability is depends on tidal season.

Photograph from Hotel Website

The hotel is not cheap – here are their average published rates:

 

The Phra-nakorn Norn-Len

This hotel is self-described as a family-friendly vintage guest house. The website home page is chaotic and confusing, but at the same time intriguing and made me want to see it.

The hotel uses words like “vintage,” “unique,” “boutique” and “funky” to describe itself and that it is. The hotel is also pretty green and tries to fit into the surrounding community. They offer single, double and family type rooms and rooms sleep between 2 – 4 people. Prices are very reasonable and range from 2200 baht for a double room to 3600 baht a night for the family room. The hotel is very open and airy and highly landscaped. I spoke to an American couple at the hotel and they said that the rooms were very clean, small but livable and the staff was very warm. The hotel has a restaurant that uses vegetables and herbs grown directly on their own rooftop. The hotel is very close to the Grand Palace and Chinatown.

 

The Dream Hotel Bangkok

Talk about a moody hotel…the Dream Hotel uses lighting to alter or change a guests mood and experience. The hotel is defiantly avant-garde and reminded me a little of a W hotel – but with more glow-in-the-dark, florescent lighting and tons of blue.

The hotel participates in the Wyndham rewards program, so you can earn points while you Dream. I’m not sure how anyone could actually dream though with all the blue mood lighting. The hotel is on busy Sukhumvit road just behind the Westin Grand Sukhumvit. That means it’s close to the SkyTrain, shopping and nightlife. The hotel is a little too trendy for me, and I like the W…so just imagine.

 

Bedroom Photograph from Hotel Website

Seven

Seven is a new boutique hotel in Bangkok and it only has 7 rooms. Six bedrooms and 1 lobby area, hence the name Seven. The hotel is inspired by Thai culture and art and each room has a color theme inspired by the Thai tradition of tying each day of the week to a color.

Sunday is red and the red space serves as the lobby and multi-function area of the hotel. You can’t sleep in the red room. You can sleep in many other colored rooms. Monday is the yellow room and yellow is the color of the King and very special to the Thai people. Tuesday is the pink room. Wednesday is the green room. Thursday is the orange room. Friday is the blue room. Saturday is the purple room and purple is also the color of the Queen, a very special color in Thailand.

I wasn’t able to see any of the rooms. As you can imagine, with only 6 rooms the hotel can fill up! The lobby is small but quaint and I suspect the rooms have a similar feel.

Reception/Lobby Area

Here are some photographs of the rooms

The purple room

Photograph from Hotel Photobucket

The Orange Room

Photograph from Hotel Photobucket

The Pink Room

Photograph from Hotel Photobucket

Reflections Hotel Bangkok

The hotel’s website is absolutely terrible and impossible to navigate. The website alone would be enough to keep me from booking. You can find plenty of information on 3^rd party booking sites like Agoda and AsiaRooms.com. The Hotel exterior is noting exceptional and in fact, quite odd. The theme of the hotel is recycling and reusing trash. Each room is designed by a different Thai artist or designer. The hotel did experience some flooding during the major floods last year. Have you been?

Based on the photos, I honestly can’t imagine staying in one of these rooms!