Back in Chiang Mai

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Arriving back in Thailand was quite a culture shock after spending two weeks in Myanmar. However, we did take advantage of a few things that had missed; the first thing I had was a chocolate milk shake and a massive steak that hardly touched the sides! Steve headed straight for the Bangkok Post, needing his fix of world affairs.

Although Chiang Mai is the lovely nothern sibling city to Bangkok, we haven't done anything touristy while we have been here. Most of the treks seem to to follow the same pattern of elephant rides and visiting hill-tribe villages (there are two main agents here so everyone goes on the same basic tour arranged by them). I suppose, with the risk of sounding arrogant, after experiencing the trek we had in Myanmar it will all seem a bit contrived, and we would prefer to save our money for Laos. So we decided to spend our time in Chiang Mai re-charging our batteries, arranging our visas for Laos, and spending time at the wonderful Ban Tawai village. Ban Tawai is a collection of wholesale outlets and factories that make and sell traditional Thai furniture, wall hangings, and other beautiful Thai things to fill you home with. Needless to say, we spent 3 days there 😉

However we did do something that both Steve and I have been wanting to do - take a Thai cookery course. We did this with "Thai Farm" where you go to learn how to cook with all the ingredients at their organic farm a few kilometres outside Chiang Mai. We got to learn about all the wonderful spices and herbs at the farm such as lemongrass, Thai basil, ginger, bitter eggplant, mint, etc. We were shoen how to cook green curry from scratch, tom yun soup, chicken and basil, traditional spring rolls and banana in coconut - all abolutely delicious, if we say so ourselves! We will do our best to recreate the dishes for you all when we get home 😉

We leave on 1st April for the border of Laos where we will cross from Chiang Khong to Houang Xai. There is a package whereby you can get the mini-bus to Chiang Khong, spend the night there, cross the border in the morning and spend twp days on the "slow boat" to Luang Prabang. However, we have heard some awful stories about the boat so we are going to give that part a miss and take a bus up to Luang Nam Tha.

Can't wait to begin our next step of the journey!

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Photos

Master chef ;-)
This is Steve looking very happy at the results of his cooking course. It actually tasted great, despite being a little liberal with the chilli.

Stef showing girls can cook Thai
Stef showing off her preperation skills with everything you need for an authentic Tom Yum Soup (organic Thai style with prawns). Very yummy!