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Published: January 11th 2007
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We settled down at the Winner's Inn for a few days over Christmas, Boxing Day (aka Carol's Birthday) and the 27th. Christmas Day was just like any other in Thailand and while there were a few expensive hotels advertising turkey dinners, Christmas spirit is completely commercial. But, you can't expect nativity scenes with baby Jesus in a straw cradle in a country that is 95%!B(MISSING)uddhist.
Christmas Flowers
Christmas day we woke late, spent some time at the internet then made our way to a
Flower Festival for the remainder of the afternoon. The exhibits at the festival were quite outstanding with over 100 countries participating. My favorites were exhibits about the projects that the Thai king has initiated as they explained issues around farming, sustanablity and the environment. Plus, these exhibits had free pieces of local fruit to try and strange juices. I'm always game for free snacks and refreshments! There was a wonderful display of orchids mainly from Thailand but also other Asian orchids. There were thousands of orchids in every size and every colour of the rainbow. After wandering the flower festival for a few hours, we were feeling hot, tired and weary when low and behold
The Family on Christmas
Vic, Capri, Jarrod and Carol we spotted a Dairy Queen! It was only a day early, and they didn't have ice cream cakes, but an Oreo blizzard hit the spot as Birthday Cake/Ice cream like a charm. With all of our other Christmas and Birthday traditions unfulfilled it was more than fabulous to keep up the DQ ice cream birthday treat!
That evening we wandered the night market and being Christmas and all Vic was in shopping mode and finally gave in to the wooden croaking frog ladies and got not one, but two, frogs. From there he was on a roll with the Thai souvenirs and also got a Chang beer can tuk-tuk, a near perfect Rolex knock-off and a flashlight. Capri honed in on her bartering skills and made one purchase after much humming and hawing.
Happy Birthday to Carol, Happy Birthday to You!
For my birthday, Jarrod and I ate our faces off at a Thai Cooking Class. I couldn't think of anything better than eating the day away, but it turned out I had to do a bit more work than just digesting.
We first visited the local market, and purchased all of our fresh veggies, coconut milk
and meat. In the meat section of the market, I spotted a cow's stomach and tongue (being a farm girl), but those items were a miss for today's purchases! We stuck to the basics: prawns, pork and chicken. Buying coconut milk was very unique, no cans here. We went into the rear of the market were a nice lady took a whole dried coconut and shredded it through a large machine resembling a wood chipper. She then took the coconut and added a half litre of water. The coconut was put through a large press and cream came out the bottom into a bag. The same coconut was then pressed again with a little more water and presto, coconut milk in another bag.
From the market we made our way to the instructor's home where she had set up outside preparation tables and cooking stoves. We learned 12 different Thai dishes including salads, curry paste and soups. Don't worry - We'll be hosting a curry-paste-making party when we get home! It's really, really delicious! I'm a crap chef to say the least and don't normally take much enjoyment out of cooking, but eating... eating is a specialty of mine.
But today I thoroughly enjoyed chopping plenty of chilies, squishing garlic, and stirring over a spitting hot wok. It was all worth it because everything I made actually did taste good - no, excellent! We left the cooking class stuffed to the brim and armed with a full book of recipe's. Back at our hotel we had a nap for an hour while we waited for Capri and Vic to return from their day of adventure.
Instead of the cooking class, Capri and Vic set off early in the morning for a trekking adventure which included visiting some hill tribes, bamboo river rafting and an elephant ride. They equally enjoyed their day of adventure. They returned back to the hotel just in time for me to have digested enough Thai food in my sleep to fit in a tall Starbucks latte and slice of mango cheesecake as my second round of birthday cake. In conclusion, it was a day of gluttony. Pure gluttony.
Dec 27
For our last day in Chiang Mai we took it easy and wandered through some local markets. We walked for quite a while, which was a good thing considering I had more
than a few calories to burn from the day before. We ended the day with dinner at a lovely riverside restaurant, however, the meal time turned out to be a bit longer than we expected. We settled in at a nice table near the river, but after 10 minutes the smell of sewage kept teasing our nostrils and we couldn't ignore it any longer. You wouldn't want to spoil a nice meal with sewage vapors nagging you, would you? We opted to switch tables and carted our menus and wine over to another table with a view of the river instead of riverside. After our move, it took another 30 minutes for a waiter to take our order, but then we had some questions... five employees later and a trip to the kitchen to actually
see what the squid pasta was like Capri and Jarrod decided to change their orders which caused further delays. It was over an hour before our order was finalized. I think it was one big scheme to get us to drink more wine while waiting and it worked! However, once the food came it was splendid when washed down with more Chilean red wine.
Feeling gitty, it was time for bed. We had an early start the next day to make our way via bus and boat to Chiang Rai.
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Michelle
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Happy Belated Birthday
Hi Carol, Glad to hear you had a good ole day of bingeing to ring in the big 2-6. Sorry I didn't send an ecard, but I was battling it out on Robson St in Vancouver for some excellent sale items. Anyways, looking forward to the next posting and Happy new you to you both. Cheers, Michelle