Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School

---

Yesterday we went out to a Thai Cookery class which was brilliant.

It is owned by Sompon Nabnian who is a TV chef over here and has done a series for UK TV Living.

We were picked up at 9:30 and taken to his restaraunt called the Wok, about 15 minutes away from our hotel.

When we got there we were shown into a room, which was the classroom and had a big long working bench at the front and somewhere for the 10 of us to sit.

There were us, a German couple, a Portuguese couple and the rest were American.

We started off by being given our own cook book, anf then were shown all the different vegetables, herbs and sauces that are used in Thai cooking.

We then went outside to our work station, we had our own gas hob and work bench each.

We then cooked 6 different Thai dishes:

Thai hot and sour prawn soup (Tom Yum Goong) - your meant to put 7 small chillies in this, green ones which are the strongest. Phil and I had 3 each, and it was still really spicy. Phil ate one of his (big mistake) his eyes starting bulging (literally) and went all pinky/red, he started sweating buckets and had a very funny expression on his face!

Thai style fish cakes (Tord Man Plaa) - my favourite!

Green Curry (Gaeng Kheo Wan Gai))

Phad Thai - which I have been eating nearly every day since we got here, its about 30baht for a big plate (55baht is a pound) and it has different things in it depending where you go. But usually, noodles, bean sprouts, egg (scambled up), nuts, chicken/dried shrimp, lime and a few other bits!

Minced Chicken Salad (Loap Lai)

and for dessert (which we thought wouldnt be very nice but was!)

Water Chestnuts with Syrup & Coconuy Milk (Tab Tim Gorb)

After all that cooking theyll be no excuse for us not to cook everyone some Thai food when we get home.

We then headed out to the Night Market, bought some prezzies for people and Phil got himself a massive lense for his camera, which is his birthday present!

So that was about it for yesterday, got up about 10am today and not sure what we're going to do yet.

Might go and see some of the Wats, as we havent really been to any yet. But we've been non stop since we arrived so we're going to take it easy.

Went to an internet cafe yesterday to try and put some photos on here but I spent an hour trying to do it and the computer/internet was so slow I gave up!! What a waste of money!!

We're here in Chiang Mai for one more night and then we have the long journey of getting down to Koh Samui. We're getting the overnight train (hooray - I think not!) to Bangkok which is 12 hours, then the train to Surat Thani (12 hours), bus to the ferry port (couple of hours) and then the ferry to the island (8 hours!!!) so ALOT of travelling.

Nevermind, cant wait to get to the beautiful beaches!!

xxx

---

Photos

Cooking School
Phil cooking yummy Thai food