Phanganist went to meet Colinot from Koh Tao’s Ban Sabai Bottle House to find out more about the interesting story behind this unique place…
So Colinot, tell us a bit about your Koh Tao story…
I was first here aged seven or eight but grew up on a sailing boat before moving to Australia.
The house has been here for twelve years now, I sold everything in Australia to come here, the car, the motorbike, I sold it all cheap and came here with enough money to enjoy myself, that was the plan, I partied like royalty!
How did the Bottle House start?
My Mum Anik was living in Peru and I was working (and partying ha-ha) on Koh Phangan when she said there was a piece of land for sale. It was being sold by my ‘Thai Uncle’, if we didn’t buy it then someone else would.
So Anik said ‘let’s do it!’
I built my own house here, I was working at the Full Moon on Phangan and would see all of the bottles so decided to use these. I started with the cellar, this is how it all began.
You use interesting materials…
Yes since then I have got a little bit carried away! I’ve embedded things into the building, we used to sell jewelry from Peru and I had all these cheap watches from Bangkok that were broken so I’ve put it into the house.
Colinot’s Mum told him that he couldn’t keep partying as he was back then so the Bottle House seems to have been a good project for him to get into and the work and love really shows when you visit the place.
Colinot states - ‘My Mum is the key to all of this!’.
There are eight spaces on the site which guests can stay in and each one is unique and the building uses anything which is recycled.
Ban Sabai Bottle House is built on a coconut plantation and you can enjoy the large garden with fruit trees and medicinal herbs, the walk to Sairee beach is just ten minutes away.
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