The Chayadol Boutique Resort in Chiang Rai, or to be more accurate, on the outskirts of Chiang Rai, had signs in some of the very best of strangled English. In the ‘dinning room’ you could get ‘all day refreshment and snacked’. It even had rooms that were ‘air conditional’; not sure on what? Our room was apparently designed ‘to blend boutique mix modern, balcony and fluid replacement therapy’. ‘You will enjoy private room, charm and warmed’. We think the ‘fluid replacement therapy’ meant they supplied two free bottles of water, and we’re very glad it was a ‘private room’ and not open to the public all day. The ‘available luxure swimming pool’, was perhaps intended to read ‘luxury’, but it certainly wasn’t, being stuck next to the car park with very little separation from the main road beside it. The wardrobe had no hangers, there was only coffee to drink and the maid left our balcony door wide open all day while we were out. But hey, the tiny breakfast room, aka ‘dinning room’ had a rather sweet view of a temple on a hill. Oh, and the café next door did a very nice spicy chicken coconut soup, which proved to be very good ‘fluid replacement therapy’.
To get into town, the hotel found us a couple of bicycles. Mine came with big magical wheels. We set off in to town and I hardly needed to peddle; the wheels just seemed to spin round and around with very little assistance! While I sat back on my machine (literally), I kept catching up with Rodney who was peddling furiously. I loved it and wished Bubbles, my bike back in Europe, would do this. But despite this joy, there was one major problem with this magic bike. The saddle also had a mind of its own. It wouldn’t stay still and kept tipping backwards, which didn’t make my bottom overly ‘happy’…….
