Apart from the gnomes, the other big problem with the hotel was its bigness. The villas were priced similarly to the top Thai resorts, but one drawback here is the villas are attached to a much bigger and cheaper hotel. So the hotel food and service can't really measure up to the smaller boutique properties who they're competing with, at least in price. Tongsai Bay (5) Room: 6, Facilities: 4, Service: 2, Wow: 0.

We stayed at Tongsai Bay Resort, which was the only high-end hotel at the time. (Now there are quite a few boutique hotels here, which I think fit much better with the overall laid back feel of Samui). Tongsai is ok, but no better. There are a few villas, one of which is pictured here. They are huge, with an enormous outdoor space overlooking the bay, complete with bathtub, bed, and bar (Somchai the bartender not included). So the outside space gets two thumbs up. If you look closely at the bar area photo though, you'll see three frog statuettes. No big deal in the open deck area, but inside, the statuette theme is carried out to a horrible extreme. There were over 200 statues of frogs, garden gnomes, assorted animals etc. They were everywhere, row upon row, and were really offputting. There were also lots of plastic trees inside, which is pretty inexplicable in the tropics (or anywhere, really).