Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai is a bustling little place which we got to by travelling North on the train for 13 hours from Bangkok. It is crawling with bars, restaurants, shops and is easily explored on foot. It has big day and night markets and offers a variety of classes (cooking, massage, meditation...) and excursions (adventure, elephant parks, trekking in hilltribes...). There is no shortage of reasonable accommodation making it a kind of backpacking hound. The temperature here is also a bit more bearable which is quite a relief after the heat of Cambodia and the South of Bangkok.

Today, I took a cooking course in the oldest cooking school in Chiang Mai. It was really interesting. We started with a quick tour of the market and then the day went something like this:

Cooking demonstration of chicken in coconut cream soup

We cook at our own little station

We eat it

Cooking demo of noodle stirfry with vegetables

We cook at our own little station
We eat it

Cooking demo of red curry with fish

We cook at our own little station

We eat it

Cooking demo of mushroom stir-fry

We cook at our own little station

We eat it

Cooking demo of papaya salad

We cook at our own little station
We eat it

Cooking demo of steamed banana cake

We cook at our own little station

We eat it

We roll home

I think I might have a small dinner tonight and watch Chris eat most of the time!

In the meantime, Chris was organising our imminent departure into the mountainous area west of Chiang Mai. We have booked a Suzuki Vitara (exciting!) for 3 days and will go on a 600km loop which goes through a large national park and some hilltribe villages. It is meant to be quite beautiful and we are hoping to do a bit of camping along the way. Freedom!