Seven

A design-cool and clean hotel, the ideal location to lay your head while exploring the brash charms of downtown Bangkok

With a concept based on the days of the week and their associated colours, the hotel has 6 bright rooms plus a fire-engine red lobby. They take up all there is of a narrow townhouse down a residential alley in the thick of mid-Sukhumvit Road. This is the cosmopolitan heart of new Bangkok, with its swish bars, restaurants, furniture shops, chain hotels and shopping malls, interspersed with the modest homes of old money and flash condos for new.

Trip across the narrowest of bridges over a tiny pond, and you come to a functional, glassed-in lobby floored in polished concrete. A magazine library offers a hint at what kind of customers the hotel expects: those with places to go and people to see. A sunken communal table made from old railway sleepers serves as the breakfast area/staff workspace/map consulting room. Stark staircases lead to the rooms, two per floor, and a terrace that will come into its own in the cool season. Don't linger too long; this is the perfect location for shopping, eating and bar-hopping, and you're right on the skytrain if you want to go further afield.

Highs

• Extremely welcoming and helpful staff with a relaxed attitude to your coming and going
• Funky rooms and super comfy beds
• All the mod cons: free WiFi, an iPod, LCD TV and DVD player, plus a library of the latest bootleg movies to borrow
• Created by award-winning UK and Thai design team; an oasis in bustling Bangkok
• Environmental awareness: building materials are reclaimed or low-impact, the drinking water comes in a carafe, and towels and sheets are only changed when you want them to be

Lows

• The temples and crumbling funk of old Bangkok are a long way away, and so is the river. Perhaps best for return visitors
• Some find the décor a little cold – lovers of warm materials will have to look very hard at the wooden floorboards
• Not for the infirm: there’s stairs to climb and a banquette to lower yourself into for breakfast
• Sound bounces off the smooth, hard surfaces like nobody’s business; bring earplugs
• Absurd cable channel package: about 197 in Hindi and Arabic, and 3 in English