Day 1 on Samet: Eureka!

The Parents and I spent a very relaxing four days on Koh Samet, an island not far from Pattaya, during the week they were visiting us. We had an easy journey down there, being dropped off at the pier by our driver, A (yes, his English name is just the letter A, though I suppose it is better than some of the names we have encountered - fancy being called Porn, Turd, or Bum?), and then ferried across to the island on the hotel's speed boat. The first views of the small bay in which Le Vimarn Cottages & Spa is nestled amongst lush forest, promised a chilled few days on a secluded, powdery white sand beach.

Upon disembarking from the boat we were led to a cool reception area and handed sweet iced lemongrass and pandan tea as we were swiftly checked in. All good so far. We had booked two different room types, one a deluxe cottage and one a spa villa, the latter of which was more expensive than the former. We had requested the two rooms be as close to each other as possible but realised that they probably wouldn't be right next to each other. We therefore thought it a little odd that the two rooms they led us to were 603 and 604. Inevitably, we soon found out that they were both deluxe cottage rooms. We had not been given the more expensive spa villa at all.

Upon questioning this, the receptionist told us brightly that she had thought the most important thing was that we were together. She had obviously thought long and hard about finding a solution to the vexing problem of giving us adjacent rooms when the rooms we had booked were in fact on separate sides of the resort. Perhaps it was ridiculous of us to think that somone might have emailed to inform us of this rather than take the decision to give us a different room to the one we had booked. Nevertheless, it was sweet of her to give it so much thought. The problem was that she obviously hadn't give much consideration to the fact that we had actually already paid for the more expensive spa villa. She thought she had come up with a brilliant solution though, and seemed bewildered when we weren't quite as pleased as she. This was to be the first of what I termed the 'Eureka moments' of which the staff at Le Vimarn had so many.

We went to the resort's beach-side Thai restaurant to wait for a spa villa room to be cleaned and we saw the funny side of it all after a few beers and some delicious food. When we were eventually given the keys (after being shown a room in an entirely different resort - another 'Eureka moment') the room proved to be lovely, with a large terrace facing the sea. With everything now as it should be, we were able to begin the arduous task of lying on the beach, swimming and snorkelling.