Cooking School and Projectile Vomiting

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After hanging out with the monkeys in Lopburi, we took a 2nd class train to Phitsanulok, a generic town where we spent the night before heading to Chiang Mai. 2nd class was a HUGE step up from 3rd class-- in addition to assigned seats and AC, we even got our own stewardess who served drinks and snacks.

Since day 1 in Thailand, locals had been encouraging us to go see Chiang Mai, which is supposed to be more tranquil and historic than Bangkok. We were disappointed to find that Chiang Mai had all of the annoying elements of Bangkok (aggressive touts and tuk tuk drivers, sketchy travel agencies, and a tourist ghetto geared entirely towards foreigners). It was also harder to get around, since it is a sprawling city and the train and bus stations are far from the city center. While we relied on the metro and Sky Train to get around Bangkok, we found ourselves at the mercy of tuk tuk drivers in Chiang Mai. Most foreign tourists take package tours out of Chiang Mai-- the most popular includes an elephant ride, a bamboo raft trip and a visit to the Karen tribe to gawk at the long-necked women. That didn't appeal to us, and we're glad we didn't do it. After visiting the Hill Tribe Museum in Chiang Rai, we found out the tour operators do not give profits back to the tribes, and are often exploiting the tribal communities. Interestingly, the long-necked Karen are not even from Thailand but are Burmese, and don't live in the "villages" that the tours visit-- they are entirely for show.

Since we've been in Thailand everyone has been telling us to get foot massages, and we've been seeing tons of signs for them everywhere. They're really cheap too, about $6 for an hour in Bangkok, and closer to $5 an hour in the more rural areas. We had avoided it so far, since we both felt a little awkward subjecting some poor woman to rubbing our filthy giant western feet for an hour, but in Chiang Mai we heard about a weird program where female convicts at the prison will massage feet for $4/hour in order to give them a little money when they're released. We both had visions of hardcore tattooed murderers massaging our feet, all while plotting our deaths and their escapes, and couldn't resist the opportunity to check it out. Once we arrived, it wasn't much like we had envisioned; apparently they are mostly nonviolent offenders who are close to their parole. The foot massages themselves we excellent, and they included a leg and back massage as well. When they were rubbing our necks we both tensed up a little and waited to be shanked in the kidneys but it never came, and they were actually very professional.

We also shelled out for a cooking class at the Chiang Mai Orgnaic Farm, which was recommended by other bloggers and was relatively inexpensive at 900 Baht per person (about $26), including all cooking supplies and transportation.

Due to unforeseen circumstances, we ended up staying in Chiang Mai way longer than we intended. Just after we boasted in our last blog that we were eating sketchy food and weren't getting sick, Jake came down with a bad stomach bug that reminded us of our Air India food-poisoning disaster of 2006 (note: don't ever eat the lamb). Guess it had to happen sooner or later... The timing was really strange though, since Jake started projectile vomiting the second we got back from the Chiang Mai Organic Farm Cooking School, which had the most hygienic kitchen we've seen on our trip (plus we made all of our own food, avoided tap water and washed our hands frequently while cooking). Leslie didn't get sick, so we're thinking it could be meat related.

We weren't sure where to go after Chiang Mai-- either Pai, a relaxing hippie town filled with foreigners, or Chiang Dao, a small town and base for trekking excursions. We decided on Chiang Dao since the bus ride was much shorter, and Jake was still sick. However, fate intervened-- the tuk tuk driver took us to the WRONG bus station, so we ended up going directly to Chiang Rai, a major city and gateway to the Golden Triangle. We've been hanging out here for a couple of days, trying to conquer our stomach demons. It's much nicer being cooped up here, since the city is compact and easy to navigate, and there are inexpensive Western food options (yes, we're going back to comfort foods since we associate Thai food with vomiting). We'll have to go back to Thai food soon, since its so much cheaper and often the only option.

We've managed to get ourselves together and have booked a room at the Ahka Hill House, a hotel owned by local tribes-people. We are getting there in the back of a rickety pick-up truck, so hopefully we won't throw up! We're scared to eat anything, so we're sailing past our "goal weights" and may soon reach skeletal proportions. This is definitely the point in our trip where we start having little doubts and wish we were in a more familiar setting, but we think we'll get back into the swing of it soon enough.

More blogging to come...

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