How Sindhorn Kempinski Bangkok Is Revolutionising Urban Wellness

It’s amazing the things you can learn about a hotel once you start asking questions.

The Sindhorn Kempinski is the gilded heart of a glam redevelopment of central Bangkok many years in the making. Leafy Lang Suan Road–surrounded by embassies, swanky cafes and exclusive homes and hotels–has long been a coveted address but it is now positively teeming with life, with new residents, restaurants and bars. Snuggled in the verdant center, just steps away yet somehow secreted from all the buzz, is this new luxury hotel that takes elements of classic form, melds them with 21st-century function, and wraps it all around one of Southeast Asia’s most impressive urban wellness retreats.

The themes to remember here are health and stealth.

For this hotel holds its secrets well, and each time you discover one, your appreciation for the more expected haute offerings only swells. The oh-so-classy cocktail bar Firefly, with its convivial bartenders and in-house jazz band, and newly opened, totally delicious izakaya Ki are both tucked in different corners of the property like speakeasies, all the better to get your in-the-know on.

The building itself is a secret hero. The garden-ensconced facade of Sindhorn Kempinski swoops in and up from the ground, then undulates outward with a shiny silver lip forming one of the most photogenic pools in town, above which the hotel curves out and in again. This S shape was not purely an aesthetic choice. The pool deck is alfresco in the building’s center, with atrium-style guest-room floors above and below. Fresh air blows in through the garden and up along the outside of the building, swooshes inside through the pool deck and up to a ventilation system that provides peak green cred, by helping to support the aircon system and keep the building cool at night.

The ground floor (outside of which you’ll find four lovingly protected century-year-old trees) is a greenhouse in a greenhouse and potentially the only place you might find us raving about a “glass ceiling”–it derives natural light from all sides, and above, thanks to a U cut-out into the top four floors allowing sun to filter in no matter where it sits in the sky. Zero surprise this property is LEED Silver and EarthCheck Silver.

Architecture, however, is hardly the only place where Sindhorn Kempinski should be winning awards. The wellness offerings are astonishing in their breadth, from the high-tech health club to the spa of uncountable delights. In Sindhorn Wellness by Resense, you probably won’t have enough days to try it all. There’s a salt-water float tank if you want to experience Dead Sea-style relaxation, and a dry float tank if you want to keep your hair dry while undergoing an undulating hydro-powered massage. There’s a proper Moroccan hammam to scrub-a-dub-dub you to the core. There’s a salt room, a mud room, an all-senses shower and an ice-bucket challenge. That one I did twice! Brrrrr.

I suggest you not only hit the gym, but also–in the equally speakeasy-style Boutique Fitness center–a HIIT class, and a mixed martial arts training session, and a virtual-reality cycling class wearing monitors to track your efforts and help the instructors cheer you along. The pilates studio has six new reformers and a cadillac in a sunshine-drenched room–my idea of heaven.

The type of immersive wellness journey available here is more likely to be found on an island retreat; that being said, Bangkok is changing for the greener. Sindhorn Kempinski is up the street from Lumpini Park and not far from the gorgeous new wetlands-and-highlines-filled Benjakitti Forest Park. Even if you’re in town for work, carve some time in your schedule to sweat, de-stress and detox in this luxury oasis. Now that I’ve shared its secrets with you, they’re prime for you to discover.

www.kempinski.com/en/sindhorn-hotel; doubles from Bt10,880

Article sponsored by Sindhorn Kempinski Hotel Bangkok.
All Images Credit: Sindhorn Kempinski Hotel Bangkok.