Something's Cooking in Chiang Mai...

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Nick: I'll start by owning up and saying that we didn't really get around to doing an awful lot during our few days in Chiang Mai; after our tiring three day trek in northern Laos, and the subsequent nightmare journey we had getting here, we both feeling pretty washed out and needed a few days relaxing to recharge our batteries. As such, what follows here is not necessarily a reflection of there being little to do in the town, more a result of our own disinclination to do very much! After sixteen-odd hours of travelling/waiting about, we finally arrived at our guesthouse late at night, in the midst of a tropical downpour. By the time we'd checked in, hung out all of our soggy backpack contents (the entirety of which were damp either from trekking-related sweat or exposure to the elements on top of the minibus roof rack), and generally wound down a bit, it was the early hours of the morning when we hit the hay.

The following morning, after a great night's sleep and - hurrah - a bit of a lie in, we found ourselves in a cafe located a few doors down, choosing our breakfast. Stomachs were rumbling in earnest after the previous evening's scant fare, so we hungrily tore into a couple of hearty breakfast burritos before heading back to our room for a morning of catching up on the usual logistics. Our guesthouse had a washing machine, which was a bit of a treat...being able to take control of your own laundry can be surprisingly pleasing after relying so much on other people providing what is often a substandard services (especially when your clothes are honking as much as ours were at this point!). Most importantly, one avoids undesirable situations such as the infamous Knickergate fiasco of Luang Prabang! With our respective wardrobes restored to fully operational effectiveness, we spent the rest of the morning lounging around, reading, relaxing, or in my case agonising over my fantasy football team selection for the coming season.

Early in the afternoon we finally headed out to wander the streets in search of some lunch. The weather remained overcast, warm and humid, thankfully cool enough to allow a bit of general ambling without incurring too much of a sweat. We found ourselves in an open-fronted street-side restaurant that was typical of the type we'd been used to in other SE Asian countries, especially in Hanoi. The food was thrown together at a small counter on the street and brought to your table. Choosing to share a couple of dishes, within a very few minutes of ordering we were chowing down on a pork and flat noodle stir fry as well as a crispy fish and mango salad. It was very cheap and pretty tasty to boot, although I felt that our coming time in Thailand would definitely raise the bar a bit higher when it came to street-eats...After lunch, we took a walk around part of the historic centre of town, which is enclosed within a large square canal and was surprisingly much larger than it had looked on the map. The town was a busy enough place, especially after the quiet atmosphere we'd gotten used to in Laos, although it was still a far cry from the hustle and bustle of hectic Hanoi (I'm sure Bangkok will see to that...). There were plenty of bars and restaurants dotted about the place, and the usual profusion of temples. Before heading back to our guesthouse we booked ourselves onto a cookery class for the following day; having enjoyed the class we took in Hoi An, and being a big fan of Thai food, this was something I'd been looking forward to. There were certainly no shortage of classes on offer, and we ended up selecting what appeared to be a professional looking outfit with a decent range of dishes to cook.

After our standard issue early evening shower and change of clothes, we were soon back out for a drink and dinner. In the spirit of honesty, I will now confess that our first venue was the local Irish pub, hardly conducive to capturing the spirit of Thailand! We made amends by finding ourselves another typical street-side restaurant for our dinner, and were rewarded with generous servings of water spinach and chicken in chilli and soy, alongside a beef and chilli dish with a helping of rice. In truth, little about the food itself sticks in my mind (other than that it was very tasty) as we had fallen into conversation with a Dutch lady and her two daughters who were visiting the town on holiday, and we absently worked through our grub whilst gassing with them. With an early start the next day, we called it a night soon after dinner, bringing an end to a lovely, relaxing day.

After another decent night's kip were were up and at 'em bright and early, ready for our cookery class pick-up. The van came to collect us in due course, and after a half-hour of winding around the town to collect the other would-be Gordon Ramseys, we were delivered to our cooking class. In total, we were a large group of perhaps 16 or 17 people, but split into various kitchens as different people would be cooking different things. Between cooking, we were stationed around a couple of large tables, with eight people around ours, including young couples from Austria and Holland and a friendly father-and-son combo from Chile, with whom we gladly took the chance to practice our Spanish (getting rusty from disuse already!). First things first, we asked for and received a nice strong black coffee to perk us up for the day. Then, once we'd all selected the dishes we wanted to cook, it was off to the local market, baskets in hand, to buy our ingredients and learn a bit about the many novel and wonderful fresh spices and vegetables on offer. Our guide, A young lady called Yam who spoke excellent English, talked us through a number of the ingredients we would be using: galangal, kaffir limes, ear mushrooms, shredded coconut and some strange things that looked like large green peas and were in fact a tiny variety of aubergine, to name but a few. Before returning to the restaurant to get cracking, we were given fifteen minutes to explore the market ourselves; after a cursory look about we found ourselves at the recommended coffee stall, ordering an iced Thai coffee each, on Yam's recommendation. We've had plenty of iced coffees on our travels, but this one was easily the best...it took a good while to prepare, and watching the bloke doing his thing was like watching a true artisan at work! The black coffee itself was like tar, it looked so thick and strong, but it was tempered by the huge volume of sweet condensed milk he put in it, and the finished product was a whopping great cup of strong, sweet wake-up juice. Delicious.

Back at the class and, suitably wired on our caffeine intake, it was time to get cracking. Sarah and I has intentionally chosen different dishes, so as to maximise our learning potential - the downside to this being that we would be split off into separate groups all day, but got to see each other periodically in between cooking as we sat down to eat the fruits of our labours. Between us we would be cooking a stir fry, an appetiser, a soup, a curry and a dessert. First up was the stir fry and we went off to our respective kitchens to kick things off. I was putting together a chicken Pad Thai, which was surprisingly easy, especially as most of the prep work had been done for us by the staff beforehand. In fact, this was a running theme for each of the courses we cooked and I was pleased that so much of the fiddly chopping and peeling (which we already know how to do) had been done for us, allowing us to spent more time learning the interesting bits. There were a number of gas hob cookers arranged in a line, which meant everyone had their own little workstation, complete with utensils, spices, other ingredients, and so on - it was a good set-up. As a result, the Pad Thai was thrown together in no time at all and I was soon back at the table, ready to get stuck in. Sarah was back at the table in equally quick time - the times were well synched so that everyone was eating together, which was another plus point. She'd put together an incredible-looking chicken and cashew nut dish which tasted as good as it looked. Thankfully the portions were relatively modest, as we had plenty more to get through over the course of the day!

Next up was the appetiser dish, and I was learning how to knock up some spring rolls. Again, with all the fiddly stuff done it was a simple case of doing a bit of final prep, then cooking the ingredients to create the filling before wrapping it all up in pastry sheets and frying them. Sarah, on the other hand, was learning how to put together one of our favourites: spicy papaya salad. As before, we were soon back at our table, scoffing our wares and trying out each other's handiwork - yummy, on both counts, although Sarah had definitely pushed the chilli factor to the upper limits of my tolerance! For our soup course, I'd prepared a Tom Yam soup: wonderfully hot and sour. Sarah, meanwhile, had learned how to create a seafood and coconut soup which was an absolute winner: spicy, creamy and thick, with an unbeatable combination of flavours and packed with tasty squid, prawns and fishballs. What I love about Thai food in general is the incredible balance of flavours - sweet, sour, hot and bitter flavours all working together to make some really mouthwatering dishes. What was striking me most about our cooking class was how simple these dishes were to make, with just a few ingredients used in each dish, but the flavours of the finished product were just superb. Fortunately, as part of the course we'd been given a great little cookbook that included all of the recipes, and more, so that we can cook them all again when we get home!

The next course up was dessert, which was to be prepared and set aside whilst we completed our main course, the curry. Sarah was off to prepare mango in sticky rice and I'd chosen the water chestnuts in coconut milk. These were simple enough dishes to prepare, and I was rapidly onto the main event: a Panaeng curry for me, a Green curry for Sarah. This was a bit more involved, and on this occasion required a fair amount of fine chopping of the ingredients. I managed to avoid this duty, but only because I'd been stationed at a huge stone pestle and mortar and tasked with grinding together all of the ingredients. The chef, a wee Thai lady who was good fun throughout, took pleasure in teasing me ("Nick, you tired yet? We have more ingredients for you!"), and after ten minutes of pounding the assorted spices into a thick red paste my arm was throbbing a bit! Still, it was good to miss out on all that fiddly chopping I suppose. As with most of these dishes, once the prep had been done, cooking was a very quick affair, largely involving stir frying everything over a very high heat. Back at our table and it was time to scoff our final courses. Sarah's Green curry was good, very fresh tasting although not quite as aromatic and creamy as I'd previously tasted (a critique of the recipe, and categorically NOT of Sarah's cooking...tread very carefully, Mr Adams!), but the Panaeng curry was, in my humble opinion, the dish of the day, absolutely lipsmacking - obviously all down to my expert cooking, and nothing at all to to with the carefully put together and very exacting recipe we'd used...erm...Anyway, by the time we'd dispatched our curries, we were very full indeed but found it in ourselves to try out our dessert courses. My water chestnuts in coconut milk were so-so, Sarah's mango and sticky rice being the better option. The winner, though, which neither of us had cooked, was a dish of banana fritter-type things with a crispy batter. Luckily for us, Mr Chile (Senior), who had cooked the banana dessert, had earlier conceded defeat, being far to full to eat his dessert course. It fell on us help him out, and always recognising the importance of maintaining international relations I did my bit for crown and country by scoffing a good measure of it. Well, one must, mustn't one?

By the time our cooking marathon had finished it was 15:00 and we took a slow stroll through town to get back to our hotel, for a couple of hours of rest and digestion. Indeed, done in from all of the activity and eating, we didn't really get up to much else for the remainder of the day...later on, during the evening, we made it back out into town for a drink, although what with constant scoffing throughout the day it was a long time before we had an appetite for dinner. Instead, we found a lively enough looking bar and sank a drink or two whilst listening to a local cover band who specialised in Guns 'N' Roses hits, albeit at a mercifully low volume that didn't preclude conversation (said the boring, past-it old git). By the time we felt ready to grab some food for dinner, it was getting on for 21:30, and we took a chance on a nice-enough looking restaurant over the road from the bar. Our gamble paid off: my Mussaman curry, one of my favourites, was spot on, and Sarah's 'Kao Soi' - basically like a Red curry, served up with both soft flat egg noodles and crispy fried egg noodles - was just as good. Leaving the restaurant, we had to make our way back to the hotel through another tropical downpour, a bit of a regular feature around here at this time of year it seems. Thankfully we'd anticipated this and come out equipped with our ponchos, which were decidedly whiffy after having been packed away whilst still damp from their last outing...still, they did the trick and we made it back to our digs without getting too soggy.

The following day, Friday, was our last full day in Chiang Mai. Given that we hadn't really spent a huge amount of time getting around the place, we were keen to get out and about but beforehand, as ever, we needed to get on top of some of the usual logistics - namely, organising a place to stay in our next destination, Bangkok. With any number of hostels, hotels, apartments and guesthouses on offer, this would seem to be a very straightforward task...however, being such a huge city, we wanted to do a bit of research to find out whereabouts we should base ourselves. Apparently it can take a long time to get around the city (the traffic is notoriously bad, for starters) and we didn't want to land ourselves in one place, only to find ourselves constantly having to travel to far-flung neighbourhoods for an evening out. Secondly, I had previously made an appointment with a well-regarded tailor in the city; Bangkok being famed for its tailors, I was looking to pick up a good suit or two whilst we are there, but the process involves a number of visits to select materials, various fittings etc, so I was keen to be located not too far from the shop. Anyway, the upshot was that with all these restrictions in place, it took us a good while researching the area and finding a suitable place for a decent price. We got there in the end, but the morning had all but disappeared by then.

Once we'd finally left the room, we took a walk down to the southern part of the historic centre, an area we had not previously explored. It was a lot more sedate than the streets nearer to our guesthouse, although there were still the usual complement of bars and restaurants dotted about the place to cater for the many tourists visiting Chiang Mai. On our way down, we'd stopped into another street-side restaurant for some lunch and couldn't resist going for another bowl of Kao Soi...it was as good as before, nice and spicy and washed down with a mango lassi each; great value at about a fiver, all-in. Exploring the area, we passed a number of historic wats and stupas, some more dilapidated and austere-looking, others extremely grandiose, richly and sumptuously decorated. Truth be told, we admired them from the outside, briefly, but held no great desire to go inside and look any further - as stated in previous blog entries, having been exposed to so many religious sites on our recent travels around SE Asia, we are both fully 'templed out'. Having had our fill of exploring, we made our way back to the guesthouse for a wee chillout (and to keep on top of the ever-necessary blog writing!). A relatively short venture out during the evening took us back to the southern part of the town that we'd walked through earlier in the day, for a glass of wine at a small bar. Dinner was taken care of by a large and busy restaurant full of locals and tourists alike. We'd picked it on the basis that it looked busy (always a good sign) and cheap. Sarah's Pad Thai came out first and I helped her out with it whilst waiting for mine - dishes coming out at completely separate times was something we'd started to get used to in some of the cheaper places, specially in Laos. However, when the waiter came out to check what I'd ordered a good twenty minutes or so later I realised that it had been completely forgotten. The upside was that when my order did finally emerge - chicken and cashew nuts, the very same dish Sarah had prepared at our cooking class - it was absolutely divine. Definitely something I will be knocking up when we get back home! We paid the ridiculously small bill and made our way back to the hotel for an early night.

It is currently Saturday morning, and we've a couple of hours to kill before starting our next leg. It's fair to say we certainly didn't experience all that Chiang Mai has to offer, by any stretch of the imagination. Aside from the historical cultural points of interest that we gave a miss, the town is a base for plenty of trekking activity in the surrounding jungle, but having just finished one trek we had no appetite to start another! Despite this, we found it a good place to spend a few days taking things slowly, relaxing and having a bit of a break from things; it is a big enough place to have plenty of amenities, but not so massive as to overwhelm. The cooler climate of Northern Thailand was also a big plus, and after our three days here we both feel appropriately recharged. Probably a good thing, because our next destination - Bangkok - is probably going to be a bit more involved!

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