Who Wants Pad Thai???

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Today was my last full day in Thailand and I was spending it at The Thai House. It is located just up the Chao Phraya River in Nonthaburi. I was getting picked up at the hotel to be brought to one of the piers to continue the journey by boat. My pick-up was late (actually the man who picked me up was a friend of the guy who was supposed to pick me up; that's how stuck in traffic this guy was and did not want me to miss the boat).



As I waited in the lobby, I was flipping through a magazine and saw that on the 19th of May is Visakha Puja or the Birth, Enlightenement and Death of Lord Buddha and it is of course observed in all temples nationwide. Had I known, I would have booked my trip accordingly. I also saw that on the 9th was the Royal Ploughing Ceremony which heralds the start of the new rice growing season. This took place at Sanam Luang and I was actually at this park the day before and just thought it looked like a big parking lot for big vans.... who knew?

Anyways, the car ride to the pier was quite the little sightseeing journey (it probably would have been easier for me to just hop on the Skytrain and again on the river boats) but it was nice to see some of the sights one last time. The driver kept asking me "did you see this?" and point at whatever and I would say yes. He was actually impressed by how much I had actually seen and done.



We arrive at the pier and I hop on the long-tail boat. Turns out that there were only two girls other than me in this class. They were sisters; one lived in San Francisco, the other in Oregon. They were very nice and we had a lot of fun in the class.



So the journey on the long tail boat takes us down the Chao Phraya River and then we turn into one of the khlongs (the Bangkok Khlong Noi, I think). You are basically just watching Thai life go by. It is homes on stilts mostly with the odd temple (just as ornate as the main ones), kids playing, people on boats and barges, men fishing and the like. We passed the Royal Barges Museum which showcases, you guessed it, the Royal Barges.


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On the longtail boat</td></tr></tbody></table>









We were easily 20-30 minutes on the long-tail boat and we come to a stop besides this house and I think that we have arrived although it does not really look like the few photos I had seen. We actually had to change boats and get on a small barge because the long-tail boat was too big for this other little khlong we were going down on. The scenery was just amazing; again homes on stilts but in a more lush, green setting. It felt like we were on a barge through the Amazon.








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Time to get on his boat ... right in the middle of the canal and we had to hop from one boat to the other</td></tr></tbody></table>

























We arrived at the Thai House and we were greeted by the owner's daughter. She gave us a quick tour of the property which is just stunning. I would totally go back and do the three-day cooking school and live there! We had a quick 10 minute break to grab some water and the class started. It was being held by Pip, the owner of the home. She was informative, funny and witty ... just a sweet woman who truly enjoyed cooking. The techniques that she showed up had been passed down to her from her mother, who seemed to be quite the character from the stories that she told us.





















So the class was part hands-on and part demonstration. It was really fun and the open air kitchen added to the atmosphere. At one point, it was pouring rain and we were outside making phad thai!! So we learned how to prep many of the ingredients and she had us prep all of them for what we were about to cook. She demonstrated the putting together of things but also had us participate quite a bit. We had the phad thai for lunch and then we kept cooking and then the remaining dishes we ate with sticky rice in the dining room a little later on.





















So in the end we made Sour and Spicy Prawn Soup, Savory Chopped Pork Salad, Phad Thai, Curried Chicken and Beef Curried in Sweet Peanut Sauce. She also showed up how to make Lemongrass Tea and how to make your own curry paste. The latter involves a mortar and pestle. Her's was made of granite and had been in her family for three generations. She also had us try our had at crushing the chillis into the curry paste. At one point, she tells one of the girls in the class how her mother would say "Pip, if it looks like elephant dung then you're not done". It just made me laugh because both Jana and I bought these little notebooks made from 100%!e(MISSING)le-dung when we rode the elephants.





















This was such a great experience and it is the perfect way to end this wonderful vacation. Because of the rain, they drove us back to the hotel. It was funny because we realized how close we were to a pretty urban setting which we just did not get the feel of just because of how we arrived on a barge. I just got off where the other two girls lived and grabbed a hotel ferry because that was going to be so much quicker than actually driving (I just pretended that I lived at The Peninsula ... that's where those two girls lived anyways). At the same time, I wanted to get on the Skytrain for one last ride through Bangkok (and truth be told grab a last waffle from one of the stands as well as a beetroot and passion fruit juice). I also stopped at a stall to pick up a few last mangosteens which I will miss very much.

So now I am heading back to my room to drink my juice, eat my fruit and pack my suitcase ... sniff sniff.

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