Chiang Mai Day 1

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Today we work up to a beautiful day in Chiang Mai. We are staying about an hour outside the city. There is an elephant riding place next to where we are which is sad to see. All the elephants are chained up and even the baby elephant is tied to his mom and has to go on the rides. We opted out of the elephant rides for a more human adventure.

We signed up for a Thai cooking class. It started with a trip in the back of a pick up truck through the forest to the market. We had beautiful views throughout. We shopped at the market for the food for our dishes. There were a bunch of little stalls that each containing some type of food- meat, veggies, fruit, spices, etc. We also tried some fruit that I have never seen before.

When we got back to the hotel, we had our private cooking class in an outdoor hut. It was in the middle of all the trees and near the river. We had 6 different dishes to prepare and eat, but we were too full after 4 and couldn't do any more! We had stir fried veggies, fried rice, Phad Thai and a potato chicken curry dish. I made friends with a little orange cat and snuck it my chicken 😊

In the evening, we walked down the street to a little place on the side of the river. We ordered a drink and sat on a bamboo platform with little tables.
I wrote in my journal and a sweet pup can and sat with me on my platform. We say there till the sun went down and then went back to our hotel. At the hotel, we met a couple from New York and spent the night chatting with them.

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