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Published: January 21st 2010
Our trip to Thailand was off to a hectic start. Our flight from Nairobi was delayed an hour, which meant we had to rush to catch our connecting flight in Doha. We literally got off one plane, cleared customs and security, and back on the next plane. Once we arrived in Bangkok, it felt nice to have the luxury of staying at a hotel (guesthouse) with free internet. The downside was we had to share our bed with bugs - we now know where the rhyme “don’t let the bed bugs bite” came from! We had hoped our sleeping bag days were over, but they weren’t and we cranked up the air and snuggled up in our bug sprayed bags for the next 2 nights.
Bangkok was celebrating the King’s birthday, so there were parades, markets, fireworks and many other festivities taking place. We walked around a bit and saw the main sights of Bangkok, but most of our time in Bangkok was spent planning our month in Southeast Asia (SEA).
We decided to take the sleeper train to Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand. We went 2nd class, with air con, and lower bunks (more room and closer to your luggage). On the train, they served food, beer, etc and someone comes around later to pull out your beds. We slept a bit on the train, which made it easier to pick up and go when we arrived in Chiang Mai. We originally booked to stay in Chiang Mai for 1 night (thinking we’d do a trek), but whilst riding up there we decided against it and ended up staying 4 nights. The first day we decided to organize ourselves, and we booked a cooking course and elephant encounter. And then once the stresses of doing that were over, we took ourselves to a spa and spent the rest of the afternoon there! From this point on, Matt and I decided that we should take advantage of the cheap massages and we treated ourselves almost every day while in Chiang Mai.
The next day we did our
Thai cooking course. Our instructor, Mai, was the chef and she had been to France for a couple years so her English was very good (and she was able to tell us substitutes for some of the ingredients). First, we went to the local outdoor market and purchased our ingredients for the day. Mai talked us through all the different vegetables, rice, etc and showed us the difference between Thai to Western veggies (size being the main difference - Western veggies are much larger). We were surprised by what little groceries we purchased considering we were about to prepare six courses. Matt cooked chicken in coconut milk, fresh spring rolls, minced chicken salad, chicken with cashew nuts, red curry, and pumpkin in coconut milk. I made hot and sour prawn soup, spring rolls, seafood salad, pad thai, green curry and sweet sticky rice with mango. As you know, we love our food so we ate heaps and skipped dinner that night.
The next day we were off to
Patara elephant encounter which focuses on breeding elephants. They did not have any baby elephants while we were there, but we did spend the day as the trainer of an elephant. We each had our own elephant - Matt’s was Bangpok and mine was Tapthong. We started the day learning the commands, then checking the health of the elephant (which included smelling poo), then bathing it before heading out for our exercise. We had three 30 minute bare back rides. The first one was to a waterfall where we had lunch and had the chance to play with or get on elephants in the water. Then the next ride was up and down a mountain - the trainers wanted to show us how agile the elephants are - elephants used to be used for logging teak in the mountains. This ride was very tough and both of us were a little scared at points. The last ride Matt and I were on same elephant and I had to sit on Bangpok’s head with feet dangling in front. It was a bit nerve racking at times, but luckily the terrain was flat. Overall, it was a good experience and after speaking to other people it sounded like it was one of the better elephant encounters.
Our last day in Chiang Mai, we decided to take it easy before we making our way to Chiang Khong to catch the slow ferry to Luang Prabang, Laos.
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You said your cooking instructor was "Mai". Did you go to Mai Kaidee's cooking school?!? Because that is my favorite restaurant in the entire world! I'm not a vegetarian, but I could honestly eat at Mai Kaidee's everyday for the rest of my life and be quite happy without meat:) Love Love Love the food there. Have fun on the rest of your travels:)