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Published: April 15th 2009
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We got yet another overnight coach from Bangkok up to Chiang Mai on the evening of the 6th April with a nice guy called Andrew who we'd met in our hotel reception while killing time before the coach. It was nice to have some company on the journey up north and he also joined us in a taxi, along with another guy we'd met on the coach, to MD House in Chiang Mai in the small hours of the 7th April once we got off the coach. Our two new friends got a shared room while we booked into a double for 700 baht (14 pounds) a night. The room was lovely, very clean with air con and more rubbish Thai tv and a small pool in front of the hotel. We got a couple of hours sleep after a rough night in the coach and then stepped out to explore the surrounding area in the afternoon.
The comparison we were given by somebody in Bangkok was that, if Bangkok is London, Chiang Mai is Edinburgh. Chiang Mai is heralded as the cultural centre of Northern Thailand and is seen as a much more quiet and subtle place than the
crazed hedonism of Bangkok. MD House is within the walls of the old town, a rough square kilometre inside a man-made moat which provides a nice relaxing setting to walk around. One particularly popular area is around Tha Phae Gate, an ancient gate in the ruins of the old town wall that leads over the moat into the old town. We walked up and down the road that runs along the eastern side of the moat and saw the gate before finding a nice place to eat lunch while we looked over some leaflets about activities in Chiang Mai. The rest of the day we spent chilling out and walking around town before dinner in a moat-side restaurant. Then we headed back to the hotel to decide on what to do the next day.
Chiang Mai is famous for many different types of courses and many people come here to learn Thai cooking, Thai massage, Muay Thai and mahout training. We decided that we'd book ourselves onto a Thai cooking course the following day. The next morning we were met in our hotel reception and walked a couple of streets away to the cooking school where we were introduced
to our teacher and the other 6 members of that day's class. First we went to the market where our teacher walked us around the stalls buying the ingredients for the day's cooking and talking about all of the various vegetables, herbs and noodles that we would be using. She allowed us a further 10 minutes to wander around and soak up the atmosphere, then back to the kitchen!
First of all we made Tom Kha Gai, a delicious coconut and chicken soup that I'd had for lunch only the previous day and my version was actually better than the one I'd had in the restaurant! We then made pad Thai, red Thai curry, Thai seafood salad, spring rolls and bananas in sweet coconut cream, a delicious Thai desert. Our teacher was excellent and gave good instructions on how to prepare and cook all of the dishes. The pad Thai we made was actually better than most of the ones we'd had in Khoa San Road and the red curry was fantastic. We also got a recipe book so we promise to make our favourites for some of you guys when we get home!
We also booked ourselves
onto a slightly more difficult and expensive course the next day to learn some more advanced dishes. Choosing to forgo the market trip we sat in the dining area of the cooking school and drank chinese tea while watching the morning go by outside. When our teacher (a different one from the previous day) returned, we joined her in the kitchen to learn more tasty treats. We learnt a slightly different pad Thai, this time with prawns, a massaman curry, pandanut leaf chicken, spicy beef salad, lime marinated red snapper and (yay!) mango sticky rice. Highlights were undoubtedly the pandanut leaf chicken in which we wrapped sesame and chilli marinated chicken in large green pandanut leaves and deep fried them, and the mango sticky rice. Dad, you would have loved all the lovely fresh ingredients we got to play with but somehow I don't think pandanut leaf chicken would have caught on in the culinary desert of Orpington! At the end of the day we got yet another recipe book and ate ourselves silly before retiring to our hotel for a shower and a well deserved nap.
During our first couple of days in Chiang Mai we had seen
lots of posters for Muay Thai fights around the city. However, we had been warned that some of the stadiums show "farang" only bouts which are staged and just for show. Locals rarely bother to show up. However, one of the stadiums, Kawila, was advertising itself as "The only real Muay Thai in Chiang Mai". A bit of internet research seemed to confirm this so after the second cooking course we decided to head to the stadium in the evening. The posters had stated that, among the 7 bouts that night, there were to be two foreigners fighting, Josh from NZ and Daniel from Scotland, both going up against Thai opposition.
We got to the stadium and paid 600 baht (12 pounds) each for ringside seats. We settled into the luxurious plastic garden chairs surrounding the ring and grabbed a beer while we waited for the fights to start. When the stadium started to fill up we stood to observe the national anthem and then the band started playing. Muay Thai is always played out to a backdrop of traditional Thai music with rhythmic drumming and a high, reeded instrument providing a beat that the fighters seem to follow.
The first couple of fights were actually kids which shocked us a bit at first. They were very good but Amy did voice concerns about the ethics of watching kids batter each other in from of a thousand of so peolpe. In the end we came to the conclusion that it wasn't too different to British kids playing football from age 6 upwards, or at least that's what we told ourselves while cheering the little lads on. I suppose that as Muay Thai is the national sport it only seems logical that Thai kids will learn it from an early age and they certainly gave each bout their all.
Morality aside, after the first couple of bouts the adults came on. The first fight was a cracker with one guy clearly winning at the end of the 5 rounds. Another fight followed before the heavyweights came on, starting with the first of the non-locals, the Kiwi guy called Josh. Both fighters performed the customary dance before the fight in which they pay respect to their country, trainers and town. Then the fight began! The first couple of rounds were brutal but fascinating and very involving. The posters proclaiming Kawila
a home of real Muay Thai in Chiang Mai seemed to be accurate and we could definitely feel each and every blow. We were both cheering on Josh and the locals seemed to be pretty excited about seeing one of their guys fighting a farang. In the third round the Thai guy landed a succession of powerful elbows to Josh's face and opened up quite a few very nasty looking cuts. Rather than dazing, it actually seemed to galvanise him and he fought back ferociously until the end of the round when he had the cuts taped up. Round four started and Josh came out all guns blazing. I started to film, sensing a good round and within a minute Josh had definitely got the upper hand. A couple of knees to the stomach and a few elbows to the face and the Thai guy was reeling. I started filming again just in time to catch the knockout blow, an elbow to the jaw that the Thai fighter didn't get up from. Top fight. Even Amy was cheering! I've uploaded the video to youtube. Link below:
A couple more bouts followed but none really matched that fight
for quality and excitement although they were still good fun to watch. Carl and Stu, we both said that you would have loved it and that we wished you'd been ringside with us. You've got to take us to a British fight when we get home!
After the final bout we headed out of the arena and bumped into the Kiwi fighter Josh. I showed him the video on my camera and he seemed pretty pleased which was nice.
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norris hall
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thai cooking website
Try this Thai cooking website. www.thaifoodtonight.com It's got about 30 recipes each one with a cooking video to go along.