35 Bow Hotel

I loved this hotel at PinKao. It’s near shopping centers and the MRT, the rooms are very clean, and the staff make you feel welcome.

The room was clean, with good AC, and the staff could speak English. The place has recently been renovated.

The nightclub in the lobby made this a complete disaster. The music and bass were so loud we could hear them all the way up on the 6th floor. We asked in the middle of the night to move from the 2nd floor, but they refused. The night receptionist said they had asked the club to turn it down, that this was as low as it could go, and that it would stay open until 4am. Who can sleep with that? The problems started when we arrived. The receptionist greeted us with ‘Checking in, sweetie?‘, which felt weird and too informal for a hotel in central Bangkok. She hadn’t confirmed our reservation and had to check whether the room was ready, even though it was 16.30 hrs, well past the usual 14.00 hrs check-in time. The hotel wasn’t busy or fully booked then. A bell boy sat in the lobby absorbed in his phone and didn’t offer any help. They got our money this first time, and it’ll be the last.

We picked this hotel mainly for its location during our 11 days in Thailand. It worked really well for us: the area wasn’t busy, and we could get a train, bus, or taxi easily. Our standard room was a good size for two, housekeeping was good, and the AC worked perfectly without being as noisy as in some older hotels. If we needed anything, calling the front desk was easy. We checked in twice. On one of those occasions, the toilet hadn’t been cleaned properly. The WiFi password was right, and the connection was great once it worked, but getting connected was a pain. Hot water wasn’t available, just regular warm water, so anyone sensitive to water temperature should skip this hotel. When we were out, the room was cleaned and an item went missing. We asked for an explanation, and they said they would check the CCTV and get back to us. They didn’t find anything suspicious. It was a new, boxed cosmetic lotion worth about US$60. We also realized we’d left our luggage unpacked and hadn’t put up the ‘Do not disturb’ sign. The buttons didn’t work when we took the room card out of its slot anyway. You have to buy drinking water from shops. There were two free bottles in the fridge, but the taste seemed a little funny to me, though it was okay when cold. We used a shower filter head for four days because we’d heard about Thailand’s water conditions, and the filter looked pretty rough afterward. Keep that in mind. For us, the location was the reason we chose it, and the stay worked out really well.