Small Is Beautiful

Just as one waits ages for a bus only to have three come along at once, so Bangkok finds itself surfeited these days with boutique hotels. For many years, the Thai capital was bereft of the welcome alternative these fashionable little properties provide to the big chain hotels or the flophouses of Khao San Road — and it's still anyone's guess why so many have opened now. Perhaps the adoption of Thai style in so many boutique hotels and spas in the West has encouraged local operators to welcome long-haul visitors with the same commercially successful combination of elegantly minimalist furnishings...