No Money No Honey & the formula 1 tuk-tuk

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Today I’m doing the cookery course. Or at least I think I am, I was supposed to call them yesterday before 6.15pm to confirm but I wasn’t back on time. Call at 9am and they tell me that yes I have a place. Two minutes later they call from reception to say that they are here to collect me. Also going is a couple, the husband who I’d met in the library a few days ago and chatted to. They were even later than me!!!
The cookery course is brilliant!! Its run by a chef who apparently is Thailand’s answer to Gordon Ramsey. The celebrity TV chef of Thailand! The people who work for him and run the course (he teaches us how to cook 2 dishes - imagine Gordon Ramsey doing that for a £14 fee?!) are fantastic and very funny. There seems to be a saying, well there is a saying, in Thailand that something is different….but the same. same but different. I’ve heard that phrase a lot, and its used a lot in the cookery class. For example…this piece of fish is the same as that one…but different. The other thing they say a lot is “no money no honey” which also works in reverse. So when we learn how to cook a dish (amazingly easy, I’ve impressed myself so much without really doing much) we also learn how to get more money for the honey! This basically means that you cook the dish - which is amazing - but if you serve it as it is you would get 99Baht. However if you put a bit of onion and lettuce on it you will get 100Baht. Then if you curl and twist the onion and lettuce into pretty shapes you will get 150Baht…..No money no honey…and vice versa!!
Made and ate lots of gorgeous dishes…reason number 4...I would love to do the full course.
At night went to find the night bazaar. Get lots of strange looks because I’m walking, not done by locals in chiang mai. So instead of “lookee madam” it’s “tuk-tuk madam?” there are far too many stalls here! It must take a week just to go through them all! There is everything….clothes, food, fake designer, watches, traditional crafts…everything! Get really good at bartering and have a laugh with one stall holder. Apparently I’m trying to kill his children through lack of food because he won‘t make enough money!!!!! Came to the night bazaar looking for a suitcase but end up with other things. Got stung on the suitcase too I’m sure, but I was just so tired! Take a tuk-tuk back to the hotel. Which is an experience! The tuk-tuks in Sri Lanka and India were quite sedate, it was the traffic that was bedlam. Here they have much stronger engines and Michael Schumacher sets off intent on winning the race. I think I pissed him off to start with and he’s just trying to kill me. When I asked him how much it would be to my hotel I thought he’s said 30 Baht. He had actually said 80. I was so into bargaining mode that I argued with him! About 80 baht which is about a quid! I got him down to 60!!!! But he got his own back on the trip. I kept thinking as we approached corners that we’d slow down. Not a chance. He was out to kill me, and all for an 80 baht fee! En route I realised that I didn’t have any change and decided that I would give him 100 Baht anyway. When he was trying to throw me off around corners I was trying to telepathathically tell him this! By the way I was doing/thinking all this whilst hanging onto a suitcase (and my life?) and shopping.

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