From a transparent infinity pool 34 floors above Bangkok to a pool that actually looks like the ocean in Vietnam — these are the ones we keep thinking about.
We are going to be honest with you. We have booked hotels purely for the pool before. Not the location, not the room, not the breakfast spread — the pool. And we are not even slightly sorry about it.
A great hotel pool is one of those things that is genuinely hard to describe until you are in it. The right tiling, the right view, the right time of day — and suddenly you are not just on a trip, you are in a moment. These are the hotel pools across Asia that have been living in our heads.
The ones we need you to know about
Meliá Pattaya Hotel — Pattaya, Thailand
This one only opened in February 2025 and it already feels like a set piece. Seven private cabanas with curtains, blue candy-cane striped sunbeds, and tiles in cyan and aqua that are a deliberate nod to Pattaya Beach across the road. The Lula Pool Bar is right there for cocktails you didn’t know you needed at 3pm on a Tuesday. It’s theatrical in the best way.
Meliá Chiang Mai — Chiang Mai, Thailand
The pool tiles here are a contemporary take on “teen jok” — a traditional Chiang Mai textile pattern that also appears on the hotel’s facade. It’s one of those design details that rewards the people who actually notice things. The adjacent kids’ area has water slides, a rain curtain, and a giant tipping bucket, which means parents can actually relax at Tien Pool Bar knowing the children are occupied and mildly drenched.
INNSiDE by Meliá Bangkok Sukhumvit — Bangkok, Thailand
Floor 34. Transparent infinity pool. We will give you a moment with that. By night, guests in the tapas bar one floor below can look up through the pool’s glass bottom. That is either the coolest or most unsettling thing you have heard today, depending entirely on your mood. Either way, you are going to think about it.
The Anam Cam Ranh and The Anam Mui Ne — Vietnam
Both Anam properties do that thing where the infinity pool appears to dissolve into the sea in front of it. The Cam Ranh version pulls this off with grey slate tiling sourced from northern Vietnam that reflects the sky and water so perfectly it genuinely tricks your eyes. Mui Ne’s 266-square-metre saltwater pool goes one step further — the water itself is from the sea. Swim in it for long enough and you will forget where the pool ends and the East Sea begins.
Raffles Hotel Le Royal — Phnom Penh, Cambodia
This 90-year-old heritage hotel has a pool that Travel + Leisure named the best in all of Cambodia. It is framed by tropical gardens and the kind of elegant colonial architecture that makes you feel like you should be wearing linen. If you need more, the sister property in Siem Reap — Raffles Grand Hotel d’Angkor — has a 35-metre pool modelled on the Royal Baths at Angkor. One of the longest in Cambodia and genuinely beautiful.
Sofitel Legend Metropole — Hanoi, Vietnam
A 125-year-old hotel with a pool tucked into a garden courtyard. The pool itself is lovely — sun loungers, stylish parasols, the thatched Bamboo Bar nearby. But the real move here is ordering the hotel’s signature Graham Greene Martini and drinking it poolside. Graham Greene apparently wrote part of The Quiet American here. This feels like the kind of thing worth knowing before you arrive.
Fusion Original Saigon Centre — Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Sixth floor. City skyline. Busy streets below. It is the kind of pool that makes you feel like you have found a secret in the middle of one of Asia’s most chaotic and brilliant cities. We are partial to pools that feel earned — this one qualifies.
TIA Wellness Resort — Da Nang, Vietnam
Every villa has a private pool, which already tells you what kind of place this is. The resort’s main infinity pool stretches toward the ocean with a soundtrack of actual waves. Visit early morning for glassy water and a sunrise that will rearrange your priorities.
Palace Hotel Tokyo — Tokyo, Japan
An indoor pool with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Imperial Palace Gardens. Twenty metres long, on the fifth floor, in the middle of the world’s largest city. Lap swimming has rarely been this cinematic.
Kamalaya — Koh Samui, Thailand
Kamalaya is a wellness retreat that takes itself seriously, and the pool areas reflect this. The leisure pool winds through lotus ponds where koi and turtles drift past marble steps carved with Buddhist motifs. It is designed for not moving fast. The 25-metre lap pool, meanwhile, has open views toward nearby islands — and a post-swim ritual of fresh water, fruit, steam room and cold plunge that will make you reconsider your entire fitness routine back home.
Azerai Ke Ga Bay — Southern Vietnam
This one came runner-up in a “Most Instagrammable Hotel in the World” contest, which we mention not because we love that framing, but because the image that won it tells you everything: a sunken lounge beside an infinity pool overlooking a white sand beach at dusk. The resort has three pool areas, including one in a mirrored courtyard, and a sister property in Hue — Azerai La Residence — with a pool overlooking the Perfume River. Both deserve their own trips.
So which one should you actually book?
Depends entirely on what kind of pool person you are. For sheer drama, INNSiDE Bangkok’s transparent floor on the 34th floor is the one. For beauty that earns its own quiet, Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh or Kamalaya on Koh Samui. For the kind of infinity pool that makes you forget you’re in a pool at all, The Anam Cam Ranh in Vietnam.
Azerai Ke Ga Bay in southern Vietnam came runner-up in an international “Most Instagrammable Hotel in the World” contest — its infinity pool overlooking a white sand beach at dusk is genuinely stunning. INNSiDE by Meliá Bangkok’s transparent 34th-floor infinity pool is another strong contender for the shot nobody else has.
Meliá Chiang Mai has one of the best family pool setups in Thailand — a full kids’ water play area with slides, a rain curtain, and a tipping bucket right next to the main adult pool. Kamalaya on Koh Samui also has separate leisure and lap pools that suit different needs.
Several. The Anam Cam Ranh and The Anam Mui Ne both have infinity pools that appear to dissolve into the sea — the Mui Ne version is a 266sqm saltwater pool. TIA Wellness Resort in Da Nang and Azerai Ke Ga Bay in southern Vietnam also have ocean-facing infinity pools worth travelling for.
INNSiDE by Meliá Bangkok Sukhumvit opened recently with a transparent infinity pool on the 34th floor — the glass bottom means guests in the bar below can look up into it. It is one of the most distinctive rooftop pools in Bangkok right now.
We are currently researching stays at a few of these. If you want us to report back, you know where to find us.
Have you stayed at any of these? Or do you have a hotel pool in Asia that deserves to be on this list? Tell us — hello@thehiplife.asia
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