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Published: April 13th 2008
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This was a transition day, a traveling day, but not like the others we’ve had so far- I guess a domestic flight is not as exhausting as an international one, or the infusion of new blood gave us new energy. We left the Phranakorn-Nornlen Hotel at 6:00 am for the airport, headed to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand..
Jaz, having fallen asleep at 7:30 or so the previous evening, and being completely unrousable later on, slept until 12:30 am or so, then woke up. She wasn’t sure which door was ours, and stood in the long hallway for a minute, debating about what to do. I woke up at 1:00 am, when Steve sat bolt upright in bed and said, “Jaz? - Jess, Jaz is at the door.” I jumped out of bed and opened the door to our room to find Jaz standing there, wide awake but slightly bewildered. Steve was certain he had heard her knocking at her door, but Jaz assured us that she hadn’t knocked since she wasn’t sure which door was ours - she had just been standing in the hallway silently, debating what to do next. Psychic Dad? Who knows…
Jaz was looking
for some food, so she took a mango and some potato chips from our room, and knew she could access Dylan’s stash of Cheez-Its and beef jerky. She ended up being awake from 12:30 am until 4:30 am and then slept 30 minutes until the alarm went off at 5:00 to get ready to leave. She had no complaints about this jet-lagged awake time - she played cards by herself, read a little, and went down to use the hotel’s computer for a little while in the middle of the night, where she found other (probably jet-lagged) guests sitting around and talking.
We all were up and ready to go in time to catch our two taxis to the airport at 6:00 am - five people is just a bit much for one taxi, even with the minimal luggage we were taking north with us. The airport offered an opportunity for a quick breakfast (some had hot dogs, some had lattes, all at typical airport prices) and then we boarded our flight to Chiang Mai.
Arriving at Chiang Mai around 9:30, we took a taxi to our guesthouse, the Seven Suns, where we found the driver for our
cooking school ready and waiting for us as planned.
A Lot of Thai had come highly recommended as a great experience learning to cook Thai food, and it did not disappoint a bit. We spent 10:00 - 4:30 or so cooking a variety of Thai food, pounding ingredients for Panang Curry with mortar and pestle, stir-frying noodles and vegetables, making green papaya salad, and frying bananas in rice flour and sesame seeds for dessert.
The cooking class was a wonderful experience. The teacher, Yui, had excellent Englsih with a minimal accent, a wonderful sense of humor, and a gift for teaching. We watched her cook each dish and explain what she was doing, and then went to our individual cooking stations to coo k our own versions of her wondrous delights. All of us enjoyed it, and the kids proved excellent cooks. In the middle of the class, Yui’s husband went out to the market to fill our orders for iced coffee and fruit shakes, which were delicious and refreshing. (Pineapple and tangerine shake: 15 baht - about 50 cents - and more than we could finish.) We met three other people in the class: a young American couple
teaching at a school in Jordan, and a Canadian woman visiting her daughter who is living in Chiang Mai for a year. They were great company, and Yui was a great teacher, and we all enjoyed our day wholeheartedly. If we can find all the right ingredients, we will be trying the recipes at home, so stay tuned to see how that goes!
We were dropped back off at our guesthouse after the cooking class, and set a goal of keeping Jaz awake until at least 8:30 pm in hopes of getting her on the Asia time schedule. Dylan kept her awake for awhile playing cards and mission accomplished: she lasted until we went out for dinner just down the street - a bit surprised that we had any room left for food after eating all day at the cooking class. We had a lovely meal for $15 including drinks. Mom called it a day by 8:30 or so, staying behind and skipping dinner in favor if a good night’s sleep.
Overall, a truly wonderful day. I had been a bit concerned that getting up so early and going straight to our cooking class on arrival in Chiang
Mai might be a bit much, but everyone held up well throughout the day, had prepared and eaten excellent food, and felt that we had had a great first day in Chiang Mai. I stayed up a bit later than everyone else, taking advantage of the guesthouse’s free wifi and posting yesterday’s blog, while visiting with other guests - a family from London, a man from Chatanooga and his Thai boyfriend - and the Australian and Thai staff of the guesthouse. The visiting was accompanied by the chirping of geckos and frogs, and a visiting golden retriever who wandered through the restaurant to greet everyone.
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