Sitmonchai Gym Question - Price and Offering

[Liam]

hi there I'm currently going  to thailand for up to one year, so far i will be going to sitmonchai gym in may, i was just wondering does anyone who's been there know why there prices are so high compared to every other gym in bangkok

 

sitmonchai charges 42,000 BAHT a month, for a private room with aircon 2 meals and 2 training sessions with WIFI.

 

Most Big name Gyms in bangkok charge 30,000 BAHT for that package.

 

why is sitmonchai so expensive, what extra does it have to offer? compared to other gyms i would like to stay at are Rachanon, sasiprapa, saengmorakot gym, Kaitphontip Gym

 

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

I didn't realize that Sitmonchai Gym was so expensive, but I got to say that when Sylvie and I visited there we were pretty impressed. Sylvie wrote this post about the gym:

The Best Muay Thai Gym in Thailand? A Video Tour of Sitmonchai Gym

 

Maybe some of what she has to say there answers some of your questions. All in all it seemed like a self-enclosed little Muay Thai gym world there. A balance between great instruction, lots of Thai fighters, serious students/clients, good people. A lot of top gyms seem to have a big divide between the "Thai" gym and the "Farang" gym. They exist side-by-side, but in different worlds with different motivations. Somehow it felt to me like Sitmonchai has been able to blend these together in a unique way.

I do remember that they never have farang spar with farang, that you are always working against a Thai. They appear to keep a big staff to make sure that is possible.

[Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu]

hi there I'm currently going  to thailand for up to one year, so far i will be going to sitmonchai gym in may, i was just wondering does anyone who's been there know why there prices are so high compared to every other gym in bangkok

 

sitmonchai charges 42,000 BAHT a month, for a private room with aircon 2 meals and 2 training sessions with WIFI.

 

Most Big name Gyms in bangkok charge 30,000 BAHT for that package.

 

why is sitmonchai so expensive, what extra does it have to offer? compared to other gyms i would like to stay at are Rachanon, sasiprapa, saengmorakot gym, Kaitphontip Gym

 

I don't know what the breakdown of their pricing is, but I don't know that those other gyms you mention offer 2 meals and a room in their packages. At Sasiprapa, for example, I remember there being only one room that all the fighters shared above the ring, otherwise you could stay about a 3 minute walk away in an apartment building that - at the time I visited - was pretty rough [edited to add: I do remember that they did have an apartment building across the street, so my notion of where there is to stay there is outdated, I was there a few years ago]. Saengmorakot has shared dorms as far as I've ever seen, not individual apartment rooms, though that too can be wrong.

Sitmonchai is not in the city. It's close to the city of Thamaka so you can have access to shopping and things like that, but the actual location of the gym is pretty rural feeling. So it's kind of more "all inclusive" than I'd imagine these other gyms are, which are more within Bangkok (maybe not Kiatphontip... they are pretty out of the way). So, all of that is to say I don't know the price breakdown of all these different gyms, but because of my experience of visiting three of those mentioned (Sasiprapa, Sangmorakot, and Sitmonchai), of those I know Sitmonchai is far more of a community to itself. So these other gyms may be offering fewer meals, shared rather than individual rooms, etc. 

You can absolutely contact Abigail at Sitmonchai and ask her though. She's very friendly and can break it down for you.