I can cook Pad Thai

---

Well, sort of. I think I burned the tofu a bit, but overall it came out ok. My red curry though was quite good.

What am I talking about? I went to a cooking class yesterday in Chiang Mai with Thai Farm Cooking and whipped up a few dishes like red curry, pad thai, chicken with cashews, mangos with sticky rice, and papaya salad. I ate all of it, and I'm not sick yet. That's a positive in my book.

Actually, I think everything I made tasted pretty good. We also didn't use MSG (MSG seems to be added to most food these days to add flavor; the negative side-effects are debated). Now, the thing with these cooking classes is that they provide all the ingredients and take care of other prep (like slicing up the papaya for the papaya salad) to make the experience a lot easier than at home. Also, we didn't have to do much clean-up.

The actual cooking took place on a farm 17 km from Chiang Mai. It was a great spot to spend the day. I recommend this cooking school. The cost? 900 baht (around $23). That includes transportation between your hotel and the cooking school, all ingredients, cooking utensils, a cook book, drinking water, the works.

Anyway, the big question is whether I will cook Thai food back home. Hmmm, that's a good question. I would have to do some shopping (like a wok would be in order).

After returning to the hotel, I arranged to have a light (very light) dinner with Saai. To help you out, Saai is the Thai girl who I met through myspace.com that is a university student in Bangkok (22 years old). We had a great time hanging out. She's in Chiang Mai right now babysitting for an American family that is friends with members of her church. Which brings up another topic...religion in Thailand.

From what I have read, 95% of Thailand is Buddhist (Theravada Buddhism actually, an orthodox Buddhist sect which keeps the original doctrine and tradition succeeded from the Buddha. It is primarily followed in Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand while the Mahayana sect is more common in China and Japan). The rest? Approximately 4% of the population is Muslim and the last 1% is split between other religions (less than 1/2% is Christian).

Saai became a Christian about a year ago. Most of her friends are Buddhists (if not all).

In addition, Saai said that a lot of her friends are homosexuals. When you consider that Thailand has one of the biggest markets for prostitution, sex changes, and sex slaves in the world, I would guess that even many non-Christians would agree that Thailand has some issues when it comes to sexuality (Just one of many sex slave articles: 2002 article ).

While on the subject, one of the organizations that I support strongly that is doing something to fight the sex slave industry is International Justice Mission. If you want to see the work they are doing, check out their website: IJM .

This subject gets me worked up but sometimes less is more...

Let's get you caught up to the present. I slept in this morning and went to my favorite breakfast spot (Libernard Cafe). Afterwards, I switched hotels (Mini Cost was booked plus those roosters at 5:30 in the morning were a bit of a negative, so I moved to Sri Pat). This new hotel (Sri Pat for 750 baht per night - $19) is close by and is just as nice (and hopefully doesn't have roosters nearby!). I met up with Apple and some of her university classmates at one of the Wats (old Buddhist temple) to check that out.

I ate some more mangos with sticky rice (love that stuff) and now I'm busy updating you, the reader, on what I'm doing in Thailand.

Tomorrow morning I'm meeting up with Justin again (at...surprise, surprise...Libernard Cafe. Yes, it's an addiction).

There you have it...

Look! There goes Dave!

---