The entrance to the building of the Bottle Art Museum at Sukhumvit Highway in the east of central Pattaya. Visitors may park their vehicles directly in front of the museum on the forecourt.

According to their own claim the Bottle Art Museum in Pattaya is the only one of its kind worldwide. In a large airconditioned hall are more than 300 exhibits of various miniatures in bottles of all forms and sizes on display. Those artistic models of many diverse buildings and objects as well as vehicles are the work of the Dutch Pieter Bij De Leij and his Thai wife Prapaisi Thaipanich. Up to 14 hours a day during almost 15 years were spent on to create those unique pieces of art in bottles.

After the artist did choose an object to create a bottle miniature, the size of the model has to be determined. This depends on how detailed the miniture will be and on the available size of bottles suitable for the specific object. Then all the parts which make up a miniture are manufactured by hand, painted and eventually assembled. To bring in the model into the bottle it needs to be disassembled in such a manner that all parts will fit through the bottleneck in order to get inside the bottle. Each single part is numbered and all the con-necting elements, which will have to fit together, thoroughly marked. By specially designed tools the artist then inserts patiently one after the other part through the bottleneck into the bottle and glues them together. As a base to assemble an object in a bottle some plastilin is used.

All exhibits are displayed in glass cupboards, the bigger ones standing free and the smaller ones attached to the walls, which does make photography much more difficult under such circumstances.

In the rear half of the exhibition hall imaginative models of thai tempel compounds and their surroundings are on display in a special octoganal shaped glass cupboard.

Location: The Bottle Art Museum is located directly at the Sukhumvit Highway at Kilometre 145.95 right after the turn-off of Sukhumvit Soi 61 in central Pattaya (direction towards Sattahip/Rayong). From the junction of Central Pattaya Road and Sukhumvit Highway it is only 300 Metres to the museum. Due to the two huge signposts on the roadside the museum can hardly be missed (opposite picture).

Mit dem eigenen Fortbewegungsmittel, aber auch mit einem Bahtbus, ist das Flaschenkunst Museum leicht zu erreichen. Auch die Rückfahrt mit einem Bahtbus von der Einmündung Central Pattaya Road in den Sukhumvit Highway ist kein Prob-lem, da genügend Bahtbusse stadteinwärts fahren.

Information: The Bottle Art Museum is opened daily from 9:00 am until 8:00 pm continu-ously. The entrance fees are Baht 100.- for Thais and Baht 150.- for foreigners as well as Baht 50.- for children.

Some parking space for the visitors is available on the forecourt directly in front of the mueseum's building.

The postal address is: Bottle Museum & Art Center Co. Ltd., 79/15 M.9 Sukhumvit Road, T. Nongprue, A. Banglamung, 20150 Pattaya City, Chonburi / Thailand. The museum may also be reached by following numbers or email-address respectively:

+66 (0)38 415'783 und +66 (0)38 422'957, +66 (0)38 422'957, bottleart@ego.co.th.

The Bottle Art Museum is also present in the internet by their own Homepage at the following URL: http://www.bottlemuseum.com.

You are allowed to explore the museum on your own, however an employee is always near you, just in case you might have any questions. Take photographs is allowed. It will take you approximately a little more than one hour to visit the Bottle Art Museum.