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Published: November 30th 2005
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Thai fire
We're coming to a kitchen near YOU! (No Nicks were hurt in the making of this photo) The end of November and we've made it up to northern Thailand...Chiang Mai to be exact. This is the Thai destination we've been rather excited about because it's where we had planned to settle down for a few weeks and take cultural courses. The best part about this place: NOT HUMID. Oh and it's even a touch cool at night. Now this is our kind of Southeast Asia.
Chiang Mai is right on the tourist trail through the region, and it shows. While it feels like there are significantly more Thai people than foreigners here, most if not all Thais speak excellent english and tourism definitely drives the city. Most tourists come here just for a few days, organize a three-day trek to see the hill tribes and subsequently move on to Laos via the slow boat down the Mekong River. This region is home to a number of hill tribes, including the famous Karen or "Long Neck" tribe --- the National Geographic-featured group with women that wear a number of rings stretching their necks. We have taken this opportunity to settle here for at least a couple of weeks while we complete our cooking and massage courses, before moving
on to Laos. We have decided not to opt for trekking from here, since it's hard to determine whether or not the hill tribes are benefiting from the tourism --- is it a partnership or just a zoo?
After looking around on the internet (yes it's everywhere here) we found some interesting trekking opportunities in northern Laos, so we'll probably wait and do some there. In the meantime, we've been enjoying the smaller feel to Chiang Mai, which is composed of the older, walled city within the newer sprawl. The wall and outer moat have become our "Grouse and Cypress mountains".....for those of you not from Vancouver, these are useful landmarks for navigating the city. There is also a really interesting and HUGE Sunday Night Market that suddenly appears in the late afternoon (Sunday only, of course) near one of the old gates. But since we're primarily here to learn some of the culture, we must tell you about our courses.
We were lucky enough to be referred by some Dutch girls in Ayuthaya to our hostel here in Chiang Mai -- the Sri Poom Guesthouse. It took us an hour to find even after the girls had
What the....???
We started to get a little worried looking in the manual... plotted it on our Lonely Planet map because we didn't expect the sheer number of windy little alleyways (called "soi") throughout the whole city. Of course, the soi which houses our hostel was not marked on the map -- fortunately it's called "Sri Poom Lane"...even with Nick's observational skills, we were able to find the place. The search was well worth it--we found a nice, clean room with en suite bathroom/shower, tv, even a mini fridge for 300 Baht, the equivalent of $9 per night. The people who run the guesthouse are a nice older Thai couple who also run a Thai massage school on the side - we'll get to that later. Through the tourist info centre in the lobby of the guesthouse we found a small cooking school run by two brothers in the outskirts of the city, and signed up for the full 3-day course.
The course was fantastic, the teacher was really funny (which always helps make cooking interesting) and the best part, the food WE cooked was delicious and too much to eat ourselves. We anxiously await the opportunity to cook you dishes such as four different types of curry, pad thai, Tom Yum Goong soup, coconut soup, spring rolls, sweet/sour mixed veggies and an array of Thai desserts that will knock your flip-flops off. Oh yes, and we must mention that we had multiple opportunities to cook with "adventure" - that is, stir-frying with a ball of fire (don't try this at home). Our teacher called it "Thai fire" but we're pretty sure balls of fire are universal. Nick really wants to come into YOUR kitchen and try it. Cooking in this style really makes you appreciate a good quality wok and Sarah's favourite, coconut spoon (actually a spatula made from coconut shell).
Having finished our course we were ready to move on to the next cultural experience -- okay, actually we couldn't have eaten any more Thai meals anyways.
Thai massage. Who thinks this style of massage bears ANY resemblance to those back home? WRONG. Considering that every second building here advertizes Thai massage for $2/hour, you'd think that we would have tried it to see if we liked it BEFORE signing up for a five-day course. Unlike your intrepid adventurers, this would have been what normal people do. NOPE. We walked in completely blind and found that we are now actually more sore going out of that place than going in (mind you, we're the ones massaging other people all day long). This one is the whole body experience, and involves "energy lines", pressure points, and stretching!!!! Too bad for poor, inflexible Nick. Mark, if you're reading this, Nick says it reminds him of the time Suman and Sarah came back from their intermediate yoga class and showed the guys "pidgeon pose", or what Nick likes to call "I've just been hit by a car pose". As well as learning massage, this little classroom filled with more instructors than students has been a great place to casually learn Thai and teach a little english. Some of the odd things that occur daily in this class include Sarah trying to teach the word "groin" to one of our male Thai instructors. Nick heard this and just burst out laughing in the middle of "Jumping Frog pose", making it look like he was trying "pidgeon pose". Despite our sore bodies we've become a little more comfortable with this whole massage thing, even though there are a lot of steps to learn.
Well, we've got three more days to go and we're feeling looser every day. We're also becoming more accustomed to the motorbike culture, the crazy traffic patterns and the sidewalks that are for anything but pedestrians. Oh and the odd human waste/ methane smell coming from the sewer. We do, however, enjoy a few perks from home every once in a while, like finding an English pub called the "Queen Victoria" and sneaking in for a Guinness and some potato wedges (even with sour cream on the side). The king's birthday is coming up on Monday, December 5th and since he's really well loved it should be a good bash. Come to think of it, the other night when we went to see the newest Harry Potter movie, we all had to stand and bow whilst paying our respects to the king, INSIDE the theatre before the feature presentation---they showed a great little musical vignette of Thai people of all ages looking up to the clouds with smiles on their faces, waving Thailand flags....this was a bit strange for us but we've really gotten good at just following along in these situations.
Hopefully on Tuesday we pick up our Indian visas from the embassy here, and since our Thai visa expires on the 12th of December, we'll probably try to head off to Laos before then. Otherwise, viva Chiang Mai!
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King's B-day
For a second there I thought you two were claiming yourselves as King and Queen. Then I realized the King reference has nothing to do with someone's up coming birthday. Like alway, I forget if your birthday is on the 1st or the 3rd, either way happy birthday! A friend here has been talking about eating Thai food. After reading this, I'll be sure it's at their place not mine!