Cooking, travelling and motor bikes

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Day 11
Back to school, Thai cooking class.

We enrolled in what can be defined as the ducks guts of cooking schools, in thai terms it was an expensive day but in the end extremely filling. After a short stop at the market to pick up supplies we got stuck into the cooking in a group of around twenty. We made 7 dishes for the day, chicken and cashew, pork with basil, yellow potato curry, Curried steamed fish, prawn spicy sald, noodles and a banana and coconut desert .
After eating the first two meals we rued the decision to eat breakfast. We managed to jam in most of the food for the day and went home extremely satisfied. Hopefully we can replicate some of it when we get home.
That evening was the final night at graces guesthouse we got on the gas with the guys who run the hostel and a pom.

Day 12
Both reasonably hungover the next day we boarded the bus to Chiang Khong.
after only a four hour bus trip to Chiang Khong (luckily with 3 stops, carly was looking extremely green, however she was claiming travel sickness) we had not much to do as it was just a quite border town. so we got a massage. Both the older Thai ladies we very excited to be working on such a "handsome man" and "beautiful girl" however, the excitement was not as enthusiastically reciprocated by us.

Day 13
Next day we hired another motorbike and headed off to see the local"must see" waterfall which was 10 km out of town. sounded easy. it wasn't. the first 4 km were on a flat bitumen road, but it then turned nasty. the road turned off in to a flat dirt road, then a rough dirt road, then an extremely big hill badly damaged by rainfall, then it stopped being a road altogether and became a track full of boulders and canyons, maybe not that big but it was rough. Not being the best bike rider (only 2nd time) this was tough. it took us about 30 mins to travel 4.5 km. We made it. Now for the waterfall. After a 600 meter jungle trek there it was, a creek with a waterfall that would make running the bath look like niagra falls. After a couple of snaps we made the trek back to chiang khong.
We spent the remainder of the afternoon reading our books.
That evening we watched the premier league soccer, in preparation for the uk, however I think its going to be a long time before I (Carly) warm to the sport.

Day 14
We successfully passed through the border of thailand and laos at Huay Xai. Not much at all to this border town, the most interseting thing is that now we have crossed the mekong river we now must drive on the opposite side of the road, now on the right hand side.

For the remainder of the day we just had a few beer lao and went up to the local temple on the hill.

Tomorrow we head for the gibbon experience.

Cheers
Jez and Carly

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