Taraweeh, and getting a family there and back.

What the evening actually looks like

In the current part of the cycle, maghrib in Bangkok falls in the early evening and isha follows about an hour and a quarter later, somewhere around half past seven. Taraweeh begins after isha, and depending on the mosque and the imam it runs an hour or rather more. A family that leaves the hotel for prayers is out from roughly seven until half past nine or ten, and through the last ten nights, when qiyam is added, considerably later than that. Iftar, prayer and the journey have to be planned as one block rather than three appointments.

That shape has consequences for everything else in the day. Dinner is either iftar itself or something late and light after the return. Business dinners do not survive the month and should not be attempted. Children come or they do not, and if they do, the family should expect to leave before the end on most nights, which is easier from a position near the back and near a door. None of this is complicated, but a hotel planning your evening around a nine o'clock restaurant reservation has misunderstood the month entirely.

Bangkok

Bangkok's Muslim community is old and rooted, and the mosques are scattered rather than clustered. Haroon Mosque sits in Bang Rak, in the lanes off Charoen Krung behind the old customs house, close to the river and therefore close to the riverside hotels: for a family at the Mandarin Oriental, The Peninsula or the Shangri-La this is the short journey. The Foundation of the Islamic Centre of Thailand, at Ramkhamhaeng in the east, is the largest institutional address in the city and the one that fills most heavily in Ramadan. Darul Aman Mosque is another long established congregation with a regular Ramadan programme.

There are also neighbourhood mosques and community prayer rooms nearer to Sukhumvit than most visitors realise, including within walking distance of parts of the Nana area. We do not list them here because they are small, their Ramadan timings are set locally, and a family arriving unannounced at a room built for forty people is doing nobody a service. The reliable method is to ask at a mosque, or to have the office call ahead, rather than to trust an online listing that may be years out of date.

Phuket, Krabi and the south

Phuket is straightforwardly easier. The island has a substantial Muslim population with mosques in the villages behind the west coast beaches, at Kamala, Surin and Bang Tao among others, and further inland around Thalang, so a family staying anywhere on that coast is usually within a few minutes of a congregation. Krabi and the provinces further south are more Muslim still, and in the deep south the whole rhythm of Ramadan is public in a way it is not in Bangkok.

The practical difference on the coast is the road rather than the distance. West coast roads are dark, narrow in places and busy with scooters at night, and a driver who does not know them will be slow. We use local drivers for the evening run in Phuket for that reason, and we make the first journey in daylight so that the route is familiar before it is done in the dark. Villa guests should also confirm that the estate gate is manned at the hour of return, which is a dull detail until the night it is not.

Transport, which is the real work

Bangkok's evening traffic thins after nine, so the return leg is generally quicker than the outbound, but the outbound is the one that has to be timed. From the Sukhumvit corridor to Ramkhamhaeng at eight in the evening is a genuine thirty to forty five minutes and can be worse in rain; from the river to Bang Rak is a few minutes. We build in a margin, we send the car early, and above all we keep the driver on station at the mosque rather than releasing him, because a car recalled at ten at night to a forecourt full of departing worshippers can take half an hour to reach the family.

• Fix the outbound departure against isha, not against the hotel's dinner service
• Drive the route once in daylight before the first night, especially in Phuket
• Keep the driver parked and waiting, with a named meeting point away from the main gate
• Agree the driver's own iftar and prayer arrangement before the rota is set
• Carry water in the car for the return, and a light wrap for over air conditioned cabins
• Plan a shorter route home for the nights the children come, and expect to leave early
• For the last ten nights, budget for a much later finish and a second driver on rotation

Women, children and elderly members of the party

Provision for women varies by mosque, and sometimes by night within the same mosque, depending on how full the main hall is. It is a question to ask ahead rather than to test at the door with three generations in the car. Where the provision is good, it is often excellent, with a separate entrance and a supervised area for children; where it is limited, a family is better served praying together at the hotel. Elderly members of the party should also be asked about stairs, seating and floor level prayer before the journey is committed to, since many older mosque buildings have neither lifts nor chairs.

A good number of the families we look after simply pray taraweeh in the suite for most of the month and go out on the nights that matter most to them. There is no compromise involved in the arrangement and we set it up properly: a sitting room cleared of furniture, mats supplied, the qibla confirmed with a compass rather than estimated from the sun, the telephone held at the switchboard, and housekeeping instructed not to enter. Where the family wishes to have someone lead, that is a matter for the family and its own community, and not something an office should be arranging on anybody's behalf.

The last ten nights

The final third of the month changes the operation. The mosques are fuller, the prayers longer, and families who have been comfortable at the hotel often want to be at a congregation for the odd nights. Some members of the family may wish to make itikaf, which is a commitment of days rather than hours and has to be arranged directly with a mosque well in advance, not on the night. That conversation belongs between the family and the mosque; what we can do is handle the practical side, which is meals delivered, clothes and washing managed, the rest of the family looked after, and a car available at unsocial hours.

Plan the Eid end of the month at the same time, because it arrives suddenly. The final night of Ramadan is not known until the moon is sighted, which means both the last taraweeh and the first Eid morning are moving targets by up to a day. We hold the arrangements for both possibilities and cancel one, which is the only way to avoid a family either praying Eid without a plan or sitting through a cancelled dinner.

Ramadan prayer timings and Ramadan programmes are set by each mosque and can change during the month: have the mosque called ahead to confirm isha and taraweeh times and the provision for women, rather than relying on an online listing. Confirm the start of Ramadan and the date of Eid with your own Islamic authority at home and with the Office of the Chularatchamontri and the Central Islamic Council of Thailand (halal.or.th) for the Thai announcement.

This briefing is general information, not legal, tax or investment advice. Thai rules change frequently and individual cases differ. Verify current requirements with the relevant authorities, including the Immigration Bureau, the Board of Investment, the Land Department, the Department of Business Development and the Revenue Department, and take advice on your own facts before acting.