The Peninsula Bangkok

The Peninsula Bangkok arrived in 1998 on the Thonburi bank of the Chao Phraya, directly across the river from the Mandarin Oriental, and made the most of being the newcomer opposite. Its tower of 37 floors is bent into a W, so that every one of its 370 rooms looks back across the water at the skyline. The rooms keep to teak and Thai silk, and the hotel has collected contemporary art by 25 artists from eight Asian countries. At the foot of the tower the pool runs along the bank in three tiers, with Thai-style gazebos beside it, and the spa has a colonial-style villa of its own on the river. The hotel's own boats cross to the Skytrain at Saphan Taksin and run to ICONSIAM every half hour, so the city it faces is never more than a pier away.

Recommended for anyone, with children or without, who would rather end the day looking at Bangkok than in the thick of it. The day starts at the pier, with the boat to the Skytrain or out to Wat Arun, about four and a half kilometres away on the water, and comes back to the pool and the gardens round it. For children the Peninsula Academy runs Kinetic Art for six- to twelve-year-olds and a Junior Chef course, and for fathers and sons from fourteen, Thai martial arts, on the same side for once. Dinner is Cantonese at Mei Jiang, or Thai at Thiptara, an open-air pavilion over the river under a banyan tree, facing the skyline the tower was bent into a W to see.