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Published: November 30th 2008
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As Dave mentioned at the end of the previous blog, we did a full day cooking course on one of our last days in Chiang Mai. This may seem an odd choice, given neither of us do a whole lot of cooking at home (something I’m sure Dave’s Mum will attest to!) but the dishes sounded really tasty and you get to eat them once you’ve made them. No doubt we were hungry when we opted to do the 7-hour course.
We were picked up from the apartment at 8.30am (I can’t tell you how difficult it was to get up that early. Won’t expect too much sympathy though) and arrived at the cooking place in Chiang Mai. It wasn’t like I imagined but then I had in mind a cross between my school day ‘food tech’ classes and Masterchef. There were 7 of us in our group - me and Dave, a couple of Holland, another couple from Australia and a girl from Spain. All of them were really friendly and funny and the best bits of the day were when we were sat chatting between meals.
Once we had picked our menu for the day (we each
got to decide on one stir-fry, one soup, one curry, one appetiser and one dessert) we headed to the market with our English-speaking instructor to buy the ingredients. It was good to have someone tell us what all of these odd-looking fruit and vegetables we’d seen since arriving in Thailand actually were. With our wicker baskets full (Dave looked a treat!) we headed back to the place and started cooking.
I won’t bore you with what we prepared; suffice to say that clearly Dave and I are brilliant cooks because it all tasted so good! At one point during the day the instructor told me I’d ‘failed’ because I nearly added oyster sauce to my hot and sour prawn soup instead of fish sauce (an easy mistake you’d think, but apparently not!) and Dave fumbled around making the spring rolls, but all was okay in the end! Not all of the food was great tasting though. The dessert I made (Dave sensibly went for mango with sticky rice) - water chestnuts in coconut milk (in my defence it looked very pretty in the picture) - was not the best. When we were making it one of the other ‘students’
asked the instructor whether the dish was good. She said no. And then, having clearly realised that she probably shouldn’t say this, followed it up with ‘well, it’s weird. It tastes weird’. She was right - it was weird and not good. The dessert is best summed up in three words: cold, slimy and crunchy. Surprisingly, nobody around the table wanted to try it…
We got back to the apartment about 5ish and spent most of the evening watching the news about the terrible Mumbai attacks and also keeping an eye out for updates on the anti-Government protesters at the two airports in Bangkok. Thank you for everyone’s kind concern but we have not been adversely affected by the protests. Pao, the owner of the apartment we were staying in, was due to fly into Chiang Mai and drive with us up to Chiang Dao but was not able to due to the airport closure. We arranged private transport ourselves so it was only a minor inconvenience for us. We’ve booked a flight out from Chiang Mai airport to Luang Prabang in Laos on 2nd December (December!) and will not return to Thailand for several weeks while we travel
through Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.
We’ve spoken to a lot of different people in recent days/weeks about the countries we’re visiting and Vietnam especially we’re told is fantastic (one Australian couple in particular chatted to us for ages over our pizza hut lunch and kept repeating how we’d ‘have a ball’) so we’re looking forward to the next few weeks.
Will add another entry soon.
Love Helen & Dave xx
Thank you again for the comments. Each time we log into the travel blog hoping to have some new messages to read.
Dave - A fair question about Animal Band. They’re gaining popularity in these parts and will soon be flying to the UK to promote what is hailed to be the Christmas topping hit of 2008, a cover of Razorlight’s ‘Up All Night’. The album from which it is taken - ‘Sound of the Undergrowth’ - will be available from all good record stores soon.
Louisa - we've not seen any Thai sweet egg pancake things just yet but will now keep an eye out specially. And don't get me wrong, it is hard not being able to watch Hollyoaks, but I’m just
taking each day as it comes… :-)
Claire - Congratulations on the house! It sounds like it’s close to where my Auntie used to live - nice area. Look forward to seeing it when we get back. You’ll have to have a second mini house warming in the summer!
Nick - Congratulations on the bungalow! And glad you had a good holiday in Madeira. Sorry to hear about the tonsillitis but at least hopefully you’ll be fit and healthy for Christmas. Imagine otherwise not being able to enjoy your Christmas dinner??? Doesn’t bear thinking about!
Emma and Ben - We hope to get updating the blog fairly frequently - what else are we going to do in the evenings?? Sure enough don't have enough money to go out! Glad you're enjoying it so far.
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anonymous
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I expect you to remember and make me Pad thai when you get back home- i love it so you better be able to cook it well!! hope your having a nice warm monday, it's freezing here, and i mean literally! x x x