Day 5: Climbing Doi Suthep & cooking up a storm!

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Today we started the day with bagels for breakie again from our fav breakfast stop at the end of our road. We had a busy day today. Starting off by finding a way to get up Doi Suthep mountain to visit the temple at the top. We had been told many prices but didn’t know the best way. In the end we ended up waiting almost an hour for our fav tuk tuk driver to organise a van for us. Complete luxury with air con and drink holders etc! J It took maybe 30mins to get to the top at the base of the stairs and we climbed the rest of the way. It was unlike either of us had expected but it was pretty cool. And a beautiful view of chiang mai at the top except it as a pretty hazy day so our pics couldn’t really justify it! The temple was pretty special. Very busy with tourists and with local coming up to pray to the buddhas. I had to be cloaked up cos I had too much skin showing and I looked...well...amazing!! We felt a bit rude taking pics cos it was very serious for some ppl but nevertheless we got some goodies :P When we got back down we had a brief look in the jade factory which was meant to be awesome but was pretty average! And then our lovely van driver (who thought we were paying him to take us all over the place all day but sadly for him no!) dropped us back at the resort. Mum had a really really bad headache all day and the heat wasn’t helping. But she had an hour to rest with some blasting air con in our room before we got picked up for our thai cooking class (one of mums xmas pressies from me).

After this time resting her head was a bit better thank goodness. We got picked up in an open bus type thing with 5 others and got driven initially to the food markets where we got shown all diff types of veges, herbs and spices. Mum and I knew very little! The guy kept picking on me and asking me everything he said cos i was the whitest! I dunno...some ppl!! The he branded me with some dye off a vege that apparantley stains! Awesome! After the markets we headed off to what seemed like the middle of nowhere to their house where they ran the cooking courses! Such a cute lil places and a very cute lil boy at the entrance welcoming us! The course was run by a husband and wife with few friends helping out and they were amazing! So funny and such good English J Firstly we sat at the dining table and had to pick the dishes we wanted to make. We got 5 each so mum and i intially started saying we were making all diff ones so we could try diff things but then realised actually there a limited number of non spicy options so some were the same. Mum and I both made coconut chicken soup, the mum made glass noodles and veges and I made drunken noodles. Mum then made chicken cashew nut dish and mussaman curry. I made thai green curry and chicken cashew nut and veges. Then we topped it all off with mango and sticky rice – which was actually made for us. The whole thing was so awesome. We stood around a table and were given all the ingredients and everything was explained to us step by step. We prepared 2 dishes then cooked them and then continued preparing again. Nancy was hilarious everytime we added something to our wok we had to “move your body” and shake that! It was heaps of fun and she thought it was so funny that I didn’t want anything spicy and she kept trying to sneak peppers and chillies into my bowl so id book it when i mixed it all in! We got to the finals cooking dish – chicken cashew nut and those of us doing that had to move to one end with the guys and they made us put the chicken in the spoon and added water to the spoon then they were playing around with our woks and told us to add the chicken so mum and i did thinking nothing of it and everything went up in flames!!! We got such a fright! It was so so funny!! The guys were prepared obviously and had our camera and got it all in pics! The food was amazing and the people were awesome! Highly recommend this place! And so reasonably priced! Was only 800baht for 5 dishes and shopping in the market etc. And when we left we each got presented with a certificate and a recipe books with so many recipes in it! Siam Rice Cookery School! Do it! J

We got home at about 9pm and were buggered so we had an early night cos we have a huuuuge day full of adventures and elephants tomorrow!!!! Was an amazing day J

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Photos

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the markets before we started cooking

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branded!

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dried fat rinds! everywhere!

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squeeze the lemon and moooove ur body!!

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Doi Suthep