Praya Palazzo: A Gorgeous Riverside Escape in Bangkok
Arrival
At 8:30am, I stepped into the hot, humid air of Bangkok to find my Grab driver in the Suvarnabhumi Airport carpark. After an overnight flight from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, I was exhausted. I fell asleep in the back of the car as we crawled through the morning traffic, waking as we pulled to a stop near Khaosan Road. The driver pulled my heavy backpack out of the car, and I thanked him, before looking around, confused. ‘Surely this can’t be it?’
I’d booked to stay at the Praya Palazzo hotel, and I was pretty sure the 7-11 I was standing in front of was not it.
When I booked Praya Palazzo, I knew it was on the river, but I hadn’t realized just how literally. The hotel is only accessible to guests by boat. I called the hotel to request a pickup, then make my way to the pier through a narrow alley of market stalls.
Disoriented, jetlagged and already sweating, I stood on the pier and watched as the small boat sailed towards me. A few minutes later, I was stepping onto a private dock on the other side of the river, looking up at the beautiful palazzo in front of me. I had prepared for a long wait until check-in time, but the angel at the front desk welcomed me in and told me my room was ready and I could check in now.
The Hotel
Walking through the gate of Praya Palazzo, you’re immediately greeted by a riot of trees, foliage and flowers. The palazzo is a pale yellow mansion, originally built in the 1920s as a private home. Over the years, it’s served as a school before being bought by an architect in the mid-2000s. The palazzo was restored and turned into the boutique hotel it is today.
Stepping inside feels like going back in time, with dark polished floors, heavy wooden doors, and antique furniture.
Photo credit: Praya Palazzo
The hotel has 15 guest rooms. I stayed in one of the “superior double rooms”, but there are also suites available. All of the rooms have dark wood furnishings and high ceilings. I was particularly grateful for the huge bed and blackout curtains which allowed me a long nap after my flight.
Food and drink
The outdoor pool is in the courtyard in front of the palazzo, with a bar at one end. Surrounded by frangipani trees, it’s easy to forget you’re in the middle of a megacity. The bar’s got a two-for-one happy hour each day. I highly recommend a pre-dinner Mai Tai while you look out over the river.
There’s a restaurant on-site that serves both breakfast and dinner. As you’d expect from a hotel restaurant, the prices are higher than you’d get elsewhere. A main course here will set you back about 350 baht (around £8). Given how easy it is to find cheap, incredible food in Bangkok, I didn’t stay in the hotel for dinner.
Breakfast was included in my room rate, and they offer a serve-yourself continental breakfast, as well as a cooked-to-order breakfast. Vegan options were slim: bread and fruit from the continental, and hash browns and a small cup of baked beans from the cooked menu.
Getting to and from the hotel
As I mentioned, the hotel is only accessible by boat. They operate a private boat 24 hours a day. The hotel boat drops you off at Phra Arthit Pier. From there, you can catch the Chao Phraya tourist boat to other parts of Bangkok. The pier is a short walk from Khao San road.
Getting back to the hotel is a slightly different story. You’ll need to call the hotel to request a pickup, which I didn’t know in advance. I was lucky that I first arrived at the pier as the boat was dropping off other passengers. I was also lucky that I had a Thailand e-sim set up that allowed me to make calls.
After about 7pm, the pier closes to the public, so the hotel needs to send someone down to unlock the pier gates for you.
Taking the boat to and from the hotel is part of its charm, in my opinion. There’s something very White Lotus (minus the insufferable guests) about sailing to your palazzo on a private boat.
However, it means that getting in and out of the hotel takes longer than it would if you were just stepping out onto the street. If the boat is dropping off other guests on the other side of the river, you’re going to have to wait. Make sure you build in enough time to get to where you’re going.
The boat is part of the hotel experience, but if you’d like to tip the operators, there’s a jar on board.
Should you stay at Praya Palazzo?
I absolutely loved my stay at this hotel. Bangkok is such a huge, noisy, chaotic, colourful city. Having a little patch of calm to return to at the end of a long day is bliss. The old-world decor and the quiet luxury vibe was perfect for what I wanted.
The rates I got were very good value, about £100 a night. Sure, you can find far cheaper in Bangkok, but it was so worth it for the experience. I also loved the staff, they were all so kind and friendly.
I will absolutely stay at this hotel again, but I know it may not be for everyone.
Why it may not be right for you:
Because of the boat access, the hotel may not be right for you if:
- If you’re travelling with very small children, especially those still in pushchairs.
- If you have reduced mobility or are in a wheelchair. On both sides, the piers are ramp-accessible, but getting on and off the boat could be difficult.
- If you’re planning to go out and party hard.
- The latest I got back was at about 10pm one evening, and I won’t lie—it felt eerie waiting alone at the deserted pier for the boat. As a solo female traveller, I quickly decided that two beers at dinner were my personal limit. I wouldn’t feel very safe coming back late if I was alone and drunk, and that’s before having to consider the state of my balance getting onto the boat!
More info:
Details:
Website: https://www.prayapalazzo.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/prayapalazzo/
A note: All images in my blog posts are taken by me, unless specified otherwise. Going through my photos for this piece, I realised I had only taken videos of the room, so I’ve included a photo from the Praya Palazzo website. Every other photo in this post is mine.
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