Lamai

Our resort was on a beach called Lamai on Koh Samui. There is a more popular beach, but Paola did not want to go somewhere that was too crowded with tourists, so she booked our room at a place that was a bit further out of the way. However, this was the second most popular beach on Lamai, so it wasn’t completely free of tourists.

Having the taxi drive us from the airport to our resort, we passed a lot of other resorts. Paola has a bad habit of always doubting herself, and so she was thinking that she should have booked our room at this place rather than that. I tried to assure her that everything would be ok, and that the place that we booked would be fine.

When we finally got to our resort, called U___, it looked much more shabby than some of the other places that we passed. Paola was immediately disappointed, but I tried to convince her that she should give this place a chance.

The man who welcomed us remembered speaking to Paola on the phone. He was nice, and guessed that her name was Italian. Although he was German, when he does not live in Lamai, he lives in the north of Italy. He was very friendly, and showed us to our bungalow. Paola still felt a little disappointed, especially when we did not get the beach front bungalow. I really didn’t care, and I was happy with what we got. It was very quiet, and had a very tropical feel to it (all the way down to the mosquitoes that were constantly biting). I felt like I could get a lot of reading done while we were here.

After settling in, we walked out to the beach. Paola found something else to be disappointed about when she saw the beach chairs. Other resorts had lounge chairs that were made of wood, and had cushioned mats to lay on, with umbrellas covering people from the sun (or in our case, since we came during the off season, the rain). Our hotel had white plastic beach chairs with no umbrellas or cushions. With a towel on top, I was fine, and I sat and began to read my book. (Being that we live in Japan, I am trying to read as many books about Japan, or by Japanese writers as I can.)

It seemed that everything that Paola had expected was not there. Our bungalow was shabby, the sky was overcast, and the sea was not a crystal blue that had been advertised. I knew that this is how Paola always gets with new places, and that she would soon come around to accept and even like this place. The same thing happened when we first arrived in Japan, and when we first arrived in Bangkok. All she needed was time.