Banyan Tree Bangkok

Banyan Tree Bangkok occupies the Thai Wah Tower on South Sathorn Road, in the business district south of Lumphini Park. It is the brand at its least resort-like: a vertical hotel in a dense city, where Phuket and Bintan are horizontal and walled off.

The tower is unusually slim, which is why so many rooms are suites with a long window wall, and why the upper-floor views run clear across the city. The open-air levels at the top are the part most people have heard of, and the reason a lot of non-guests come through the lobby in the evening.

It carries a 4.8 out of 5 on Google across 16,982 reviews — by a wide margin the largest review base of any property on this page, which is what you would expect of a long-established city hotel rather than a remote resort.

Sathorn is offices and embassies rather than sightseeing, which cuts both ways: quiet at night and well connected by road, but the temples and the river are a trip rather than a stroll. Lumphini Park is the nearest real green space, a short ride north.

The BTS and MRT both serve the Sathorn/Silom area, and in Bangkok traffic the train is usually the faster way to anywhere central at the times you would want to travel.

The open-air upper floors are the hotel’s signature and are open to non-guests, so they are busy, and they close or move indoors when the weather turns — this is a tropical city and the wet season is real. If a particular evening up there is the reason for the trip, it is worth a booking and a fallback.