(written 20/08/09, posted 06/10/09)
Whilst I was wondering around yesterday I booked a Thai Cookery school for today. Chiang Mai is the place for courses: meditation, Buddhism, cooking and massage mostly. I’d like to have done more but only have 6 or 7 days here.
Bus picks us up earlier than I’d like and we go to the market for a bit of a tour. I’ve never seen so many different types of rice and chillies. Everything else feels a bit like the Chinese supermarket back home. Well…that’s apart from the live fish in a tank all peering out at us.
We get to the organic farm in our songthaew. After a tour of the rows of vegetables and banana trees, I make sure I’m near the fun German couple and the other single woman from Italy. The four of us behave like naughty schoolchildren and are way behind everyone else pounding chillies into green curry paste. Lunch is amazing, if I do say so myself. My Tom Yam soup is delicious and better than I’ve had in one Thai restaurant in London. I must be going to the wrong one. The green curry is delicious although mine wasn’t hot enough so I added a couple of small green chillis whole at the end, on the advice of our rather tasty teacher. At lunch I proceed to eat one whole then cry. Luckily my equally as delicious chicken and cashew nut stir fry does the trick of washing it down.
After lunch we’re all standing around stuffed and sleepy in the heat. We make mango sticky rice for dessert though no-one can eat it apart from the German woman who had two spoonfuls of lunch, presumably so she could eat dessert. Some people make bananas in coconut milk. This looks like grey baby food to me but I bet its comfort manna from heaven. Spring rolls to finish off and we head outside to be fed juicy slices of mango. Everyone snoozes in the back on the return journey clutching their bags of food.
Back at the hostel I grab a coffee and L comes over to chat. I explain I’m waiting for M a VSO bod and invite her for a drink. She’s on her own after her friend went home. The three of us go back to the local bar for beers and then some street food. I surprisingly manage to eat even after L and I scoffed the remaining spring rolls at the hostel café. I have two weeks left in Thailand and that will be the end of my trip. I get the feeling I will be the size of a house after all these enjoyable beers and eats with lovely company.
Whilst I was wondering around yesterday I booked a Thai Cookery school for today. Chiang Mai is the place for courses: meditation, Buddhism, cooking and massage mostly. I’d like to have done more but only have 6 or 7 days here.
Bus picks us up earlier than I’d like and we go to the market for a bit of a tour. I’ve never seen so many different types of rice and chillies. Everything else feels a bit like the Chinese supermarket back home. Well…that’s apart from the live fish in a tank all peering out at us.
We get to the organic farm in our songthaew. After a tour of the rows of vegetables and banana trees, I make sure I’m near the fun German couple and the other single woman from Italy. The four of us behave like naughty schoolchildren and are way behind everyone else pounding chillies into green curry paste. Lunch is amazing, if I do say so myself. My Tom Yam soup is delicious and better than I’ve had in one Thai restaurant in London. I must be going to the wrong one. The green curry is delicious although mine wasn’t hot enough so I added a couple of small green chillis whole at the end, on the advice of our rather tasty teacher. At lunch I proceed to eat one whole then cry. Luckily my equally as delicious chicken and cashew nut stir fry does the trick of washing it down.
After lunch we’re all standing around stuffed and sleepy in the heat. We make mango sticky rice for dessert though no-one can eat it apart from the German woman who had two spoonfuls of lunch, presumably so she could eat dessert. Some people make bananas in coconut milk. This looks like grey baby food to me but I bet its comfort manna from heaven. Spring rolls to finish off and we head outside to be fed juicy slices of mango. Everyone snoozes in the back on the return journey clutching their bags of food.
Back at the hostel I grab a coffee and L comes over to chat. I explain I’m waiting for M a VSO bod and invite her for a drink. She’s on her own after her friend went home. The three of us go back to the local bar for beers and then some street food. I surprisingly manage to eat even after L and I scoffed the remaining spring rolls at the hostel café. I have two weeks left in Thailand and that will be the end of my trip. I get the feeling I will be the size of a house after all these enjoyable beers and eats with lovely company.
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