Thread: New guest rooms - Indian style

The travel press is very keen on "glamping". Sounds like a great concept for Phuket but you might find yourself a destination in your own right with Guardian reader types who will expect a vegetarian menu and a mission statement for the ethnical treatment and personal development of your staff.

Potentially a problem if you are shagging the builder's 18 year old daughter.

Thats the word i was looking for.

Glamping.

Simon, have you had a chat with the Aussie guys at Shades in Phuket. They do tensioned fabric constructions and will probably have some good ideas ( being Aussies and all

Originally Posted by Capex

Simon, have you had a chat with the Aussie guys at Shades in Phuket. They do tensioned fabric constructions and will probably have some good ideas ( being Aussies and all

Good ideas and Australians in the same sentence ? Really ?

That's like using the words "Thai" and "logic" in the same sentence..

Capex, I have spoken to them and other canvas companies in Phuket. They all charge silly rates (for yachties and hiso bars etc). It is cheaper for me to import from the USA, especially from a company that has been making these teepees for many years.

How nice, a Hamster hotel.

deleted, being miserabled again...tut,tut....

Originally Posted by Simon43

I had to look up the definition of glamping, but that's definitely my target market.

But Norton, I also love that Hobbit house. You got me thinking about the guest rooms after the 'glamping'.

Have a look at glamping.com and the few resorts featured on that website from Thailand.

Granted that my little resort is a far cry from what is on offer, but that Chainag Rai tent accommodation at $1,729 per night, or the Hintok tents at $500 per night gives an indication that 1,000 baht in ow season and 2,000 baht in high season is not unjustified

Are you gonna have a pool? Put in a pool and a yoga studio you could probably double that from the glamping set.
A "mission statement " about helping the planet and so forth should add a bit too. Easy for you given your track record in building free hotels for the natives

Put in a pool and a yoga studio you could probably double that from the glamping set.
A "mission statement " about helping the planet...

A pool is going in next year. I understand your comments about the yoga set etc etc. Those potential guests (probably young, female Western women who abhor sexpats), might take offence at my drunken antics every evening with my gik.


BTW, I'm not going to fark about and do nothing. Yesterday, the hole for the poo tank was dug and the tank dropped into place. Today, I installed the poo pipes leading from each bathroom. I've found some really nice, antislip floor tiles for the platform that the teepees will be installed on. Also ordered 2 very solid, mai sak bed frames that incorporates old cartwheels into the frame

Question Simon, is this you.

Phuket Airport Hotel : Make your short stay a great stay

Phuket Airport Hotel - what's going on?

Question Simon, is this you.

It was.

That was the first hotel that I built, just after the tsunami. It was also the first hotel at the airport, (hence the easy name and valuable website domain).

I sold it about 5 years ago when I divorced wife #2. But as per Thai law, I got 50% of the sale proceeds, (the hotel is on long-leased land, hence no problems about land ownership).

Now, that hotel is owned by a dutch guy, who looks after it very well. But he has a big problem. The monthly land lease is 100,000 baht, and rises each year by about 5% (according to the lease contract).

In order to make a profit on his business, he has to sell his rooms at high rates. But now there are cheaper hotels in the area and a new, budget hotel being built just yards from him.

He knows (and has told me), that he will have big problems next high season when the new hotel opens, with lower room rates.

In hindsight, I am glad that I sold it, not only because of the land-lease cost, (my new B&B land lease is 16,000 baht per month because it is not by the main road). Also, his hotel is now noisy, due to the increased traffic and nearby condos etc.

After haggling to and from for a few weeks, today I finally made the payment to import 2 Sioux Indian, 18 feet diameter teepees....

I am committed now - it is wigwams or bust

Originally Posted by Simon43

I am committed now - it is wigwams or bust

We're awaiting the pictures.

I must say, Simon, as soon as you get an idea in your head - you actually go for it!! No phaffing around!!

Good luck and can't wait to see the pics.

have you worked out the toilets and air conditioning ?

I would say in one of them, great idea, the video, very interesting, well worth a try.

have you worked out the toilets and air conditioning ?

As far as I can, without actually putting the wigwam, - sorry genuine Sioux Native American Indian Teepee - in place.

I hope my calculations are correct, because I have installed all the bathroom plumbing and electrical cabling already - and now they are under 6 inches of reinforced concrete...

I do not like putting water pipes in concrete floors - they have a habit of leaking and requiring me to break the floor some years later to effect a repair.

But I didn't have a choice with the teepees, because they sit on a concrete slab and the plumbing/electrical pipes and cables have to come up from that slab - running the utilities above ground would look unsightly.

So I measured up everything and laid down pipes for the water supply to the loo, shower and hand basin, then added waste water pipework for the shower tray and basin, then added the waste pipes from the loo, emptying into a 600 litre black plastic septic tank. (600 litre is an OK size for 2 teepees - will need emptying bout every 2 years from my experience.).

Then I excavated my dry well at one corner of the plot, feeding the septic tank out pipe work to it, as well as the shower and basin wastes - those being piped via a fat grabber tank.

I ran cabling for the air-con, shower heater, lights, electricity plugs and TV coax in pipework that enters the room from the floor slab at at point where I will construct a solid wall to partition off some of the tent area for the bathroom.

That wall will be basically a quadrant of the teepee, so 2 walls at 90 degrees to each other, built up until they reach the slope of the teepee material. The gap between top of the wall and the material can be filled with those expanded foam pipes that kids play with, (about 8cm in diameter).

The walls are not curved, so I will be able to install the air-con unit on one wall, cooling the bedroom area of the teepee. On the other partition wall is a bathroom door.

The bathroom itself has a shower tray and doors, pedestal loo and hand-basin; the latter is actually fixed to the inside of the bathroom door to save on space.

Er... how do I install the bathroom fan unit? Bugger, need to think about that. (I do not want to cut into the teepee material unless I have to.

Right now, the concrete floor slab is almost finished. Then I will put down the floor tiles (non-slip).

Other things to sort out:
How to stop mozzies and snakes entering the teepees?
I can't know for sure until I install the first teepee. But I think that I will have to sew in a strong mozzie black netting material to fill in the gap between the teepee material and the floor slab. The double-thickness netting will have excess on the slab and I plan to then lay down a barrier using a tube of some brightly-coloured material that is filled with sand, thus forming a sandbag that runs around the entire circumference of the teepee.

To ensure that rain doesn't enter the teepee, I'll also put down a single row of bricks around each teepee, about 4 inches in height. But hey!, I could be talking bollox when I actually install the first teepee

I will add some photos here, but I need to go down to the internet shop to upload these - my PC is playing up with my USB stick!

Anyway, good fun. I have chatted with my hotel guests about my idea and no-one has yet called me a complete twat and dickhead, at least not to my face

Fucken hell Simon you never cease to amaze. Good luck with the tee pee thingo

Originally Posted by Simon43

Anyway, good fun. I have chatted with my hotel guests about my idea and no-one has yet called me a complete twat and dickhead, at least not to my face

Probably because they're all Chinese!

GOOD luck Simon. Keep working and do not take time off to get married.

^Heh...He'll only be losing a couple of tents this time!...

Seriously, well done Simon...Look forward to pics of the Sioux Shacks...