Bangkok Spa
In the last ten years, you may notice spa as the fastest growing business in many countries. In Thailand there are almost 800 spa venues recognized as high standard. In Bangkok alone, there are countless ranging from the most luxurious to the simplest one making the city spa heaven. Because it’s everywhere, many spa venues have tried to make itself different which create wide alternatives in recieving spa. Before we explore the venues, let’s have a look of history and development of spa in Thailand.
1. Thai Massage
Thai massage is known as “nuat phaen boran” or “nuat phaen Thai,” the oldest treatment in the Kingdom of Thailand. It is based on Ayuraveda and Yoga which involves with stretching and deep massage resulting the decrease of tension in muscle and tendons. Thai massage is quite strong so if you have sturdy back, you may like it.
If you feel like you want the Thai massage, it’s virtually everywhere! You can have yourself relaxed from the street side of walking streets or markets, blocks of buildings around the city to luxurious five star hotels.
Thai massage is very popular and opens as courses for those who are interested.
There are countless schools for Thai massage. One of the most famous venue is Wat Pho massage school at Wat Phra Chetupon (Wat Pho) where expert spa therapists in many famous spa venues have graduated from.
2. Massage parlor
The massage parlor or in other words “Aab Ob Nuad” takes place in Thailand for quite a long time. Customers for this spa type are definitely gentlemen. It’s where the customers can come and pick the therapist and enjoy variety types of service each venue has to offer. Night is the only time when service is available.
3. Spa
Spa in Greek and Roman age was related to bathing. Now when it comes to Thailand, spa has become various with a combination of bathing and Thai massage as well as other techniques. The spa venues can be categorized into many different types in terms of basic idea, location, purposes, etc. They can be as:
-Row house spa venue
It can be found almost everywhere in the city with reasonable rate when services may not be as variety. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that it offers the worst treatment among all kinds.
Price range: 150-1,000 Baht
- Home spa
Set among spectacular location and decoration, it’s more classy with more choice of treatment and services. Each of the venues has unique characteristics among its kind from the designed treatments and location.
Price range: 500-8,000 Baht
- Hotel venue spas
The most luxurious and the most expensive with hotel standard, it’s where you probably get the best service. Each has created concept and provide treatment and services to make itself unique.
Price range: 1,000-15,000 Baht
- Medical spa
With variety types of service and treatment, this spa type was born for medical purposes, mostly deals with beauty with hi-tech facilities for healing or beautifying.
Price range: 1,000-30,000 Baht
In this feature we intorduce you to the two types we’ve visited which are home spa and those in hotel venues. We promise we’ll come back with more updates with more interesting venues. Enjoy!
The Peninsula Spa
Recently I asked my spa expert colleague the best spa venues where she would recommend. According to her, the Peninsula Spa is one among the interesting ones in terms of location and decoration. Finally I got a chance to visit the Peninsula spa by ESPA and discovered it is more than just the look that is elegant.
