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Published: March 8th 2007
Chiang Mai Market
Spot the pigs head competition...So as previously mentioned, we made it up to Chiang Mai on another sleeper train, and another 18 hour journey. Seems easy now! 2 hour European flights will be a breeze...
Spent the first day getting our barings in the city. We quite like Chiang Mai, for a city of its size, its fairly relaxed. Not quite as manic as Bangkok! A moat envelopes the old town district, with more of the commercial markets and businesses further out to the east. Made a quick scout of the tailor shops to see where James was to get his suit made, before visiting the night bizarre. Were quite looking forward to looking round the night market, as we had heard it was a great place to do some shopping, however, we were quite dissapointed, as it seemed to be the same goods which are sold Thailand-wide!
Booked ourselves on a Thail cookery course, which was set out in the hills north of Chiang Mai on a little farm. Spent the morning walking around a local market, learning about rice, coconut milk and fish sauce, whilst trying not to get freaked out by the pigs heads smiling at us from the meat
Thai Farm Cooking School
James learning about all the random bushes. stalls. From here we were taken to the farm, where we were taken around the vegetable gardens, and shown the different plants and vegetables which were to go into the food we were going to make... seems like they use pretty much anything they can grow!! Finally we got down to doing some cooking! A good hour was spent bashing and pounding some ingediants into a sloppy mess, which somewhat resembled the green curry paste you see in the supermarket. Karen pounded so hard she got chilli paste in her right eye (which was quickly remedied by the teacher pouring water over her left foot, strange but true!). We also made a stir fry, some spring rolls, a spicy shrimp soup and a banana and coconut milk desert, all of which we had to eat (and it was pretty good!). All in all a great day, which kept Karen happy.
Apart from a trip to the dentists, the only other excursion of note was a mountain biking trip to the mountains overlooking Chiang Mai. A 25km downhill descent, over tricky steep dirt tracks, where 6 out of 10 people fell off (Karen did but gracefully, James didn't), as well
Thai Farm Cooking School
James doing a Gordon Ramsey
(F*#@*!!!) as some quite tought single-track sections for the more advanced in the group (Karen didn't, but James did ungracefully!). Great day out, technically tougher than the Death Road trip in Bolivia, but not quite so scary!
James managed to get his suit sorted before we left. Pretty dapper we think! Not the cheapest in town, but we went for a quality establishment. Looking forward to wearing it now for the numerous weddings and interviews will have to attend when we get back!!!
Booked ourselves a minibus up across the border into Laos, to take us to our most northerly point of the trip - Hauy Xai.
See you there!!!
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