Thai Cooking School

On the third day in Chiang Mai, we took an all-day cooking class. The class was actually held about 30 minutes outside of town at the school's own organic farm. On the way to the farm, we stopped by a very local market, and browsed around. Who knew there was so many different kinds of rice! Not only are there different varieties, but they age the rice for different periods of time. 

Anyone need some eggs? My first question is, how long does it take these people to sell all of those eggs? One day? One week? And I assume they get new shipments in all the time, which they probably just place right on top. Does that mean the eggs on the bottom are weeks old? Maybe.

Vegetable section!

This is a giant press that they use to make coconut milk! The young, green coconuts are the ones with the water inside that everyone likes to drink. No Mom, not the icky stuff you buy in a bottle, young coconut water is sweet and refreshing. The meat is also like jelly, nice to scoop out with a spoon. The mature brown coconuts are used to make coconut milk. Once cracked open, whatever water is left is dumped out, and the firm meat is put through this press with some regular water. Out comes wonderful coconut milk! The first time through the press makes coconut cream, the second time makes coconut milk. Delicious! A great dessert is coconut milk and bananas boiled with some cinnamon and nutmeg! Dessert soup!

This is pre-made curry paste of different varieties. We got to make our own curry paste in the cooking class, but it was very labor intensive, lots of pounding with a giant pestle and mortar. I'd imagine buying it in bulk like this would be much better. And more flavorful than what we can buy in a jar at home! 

This lady was making portions of mango and sweet sticky rice. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. This is a favorite local dessert for good reason. The sticky rice is mixed with sugar, and then you eat it with a slice of mango. Heaven on earth. Perhaps we could use honey instead, make it more paleo? Look at those beautiful mangos!

This lady was making fried chicken. Those are the biggest woks I've ever seen. Talk about deep fried..

These were our outfits for when we walked around the farm, learning about what local ingredients they use. Some stuff, particularly herbs and roots I have never heard of before. Such as galangal? Almost like ginger but with an even sharper taste?

Here, Drew is cooking a single portion of big noodle stir-fry. Cooking is really fun when all the prep work is done for you! And it doesn't take nearly as long. The staple ingredients for almost all Thai dished is fish sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, and salt. Not soy sauce surprisingly. But I bet you could take out the sugar and the dishes wouldn't be too different. 

Pad thai anyone? Ingredients are quite simple! Throughout the day, we made a soup, a curry, a stir-fry, pad thai, and dessert! We were so stuffed we had to take the pad thai home! 

Here Drew is making his own mango with sticky rice. I think that is corn starch and sugar getting dumped onto the rice. I never said it was healthy. 

That night for dinner we went to a place known for grilling whole fish in a salt brine. Delicious!

The last day we had an early afternoon flight, so we relaxed in the morning, going back to FreeBird cafe for lunch and some reading time. These scooters were lined up outside of a school. 

A FreeBird cafe chai! 

By the time we had left Chiang Mai we had tried all three of the most popular forms of transportation. Scooters are obviously best for individual or pair travel. Tuk-tuks are for 3-4 people and behave like taxis, and songthaews are like the buses. You could fit around 8 people in one of those. However, because we were there in the low season, the songthaews would act like taxis and would be willing to pick just you up and drive you somewhere. Normally they follow more specific routes. Overall, loved Chiang Mai!

Doi Suthep and Night Market

On Sunday, we decided to rent a scooter, as we wanted to drive into the hills about 30 min to see a famous temple. Drew is very comfortable driving, as he played with dirt bikes etc. a lot as a kid. I, on the other hand, was white knuckling it on the back seat, sounding more and more like my mother, frantically yelling for Drew to slow down..."Gary!!! Gaaaryyyyy!!!" (my father's name is Gary, can you imagine the frantic tone?" Anyways, I eventually became comfortable on the scooter, starting leaning the right way on curves, stopped choking Drew, and even drove it a bit myself later. 

The temple we drove to is a major tourist attraction, so there were lots of stalls outside selling all sorts of things. Hotdog wrapped in a waffle anyone? It took all of Drew's willpower to resist that one, but since it's not really a local food, we could justify skipping it. 

We had to walk up about 300 stairs to reach the temple, but after living in Hong Kong for over a year, stairs are nothing. These were even super tiny stairs, so we barely got out of breath. The funny thing was they had placed these young girls dressed up in some tradition garb every 50 steps on the way up. Not sure what their purpose was other than to make me feel bad for them.

The temple itself is really beautiful, entirely covered in gold leaf. It was literally dazzling. This place, again, had a no short shorts policy, so I thought I would be clever and bring along a pair of Drew's shorts to wear over my own. Ha! I win. But I looked pretty silly. Is it sad that Drew and I have the same sized hips? 0.o

Lots of Buddhas in different poses. Lots of candles, lots of incense. 

This particular alter was cool because all of the walls were covered in beautiful murals. The altar was also adorned with elephant tusks, which I will explain in a second. 

Outside of the altars was a few Buddhas with oil lamps in front. We watched for a bit, and it seemed like only women were participating in pouring additional oil into the lamps to make them burn a bit brighter. I sort of assumed it was to pray for fertility/children/womanly things, so I decided to pray myself. I was spiritually praying to God for these things, but someone brought up the point that I was still performing an action that implies praying to Buddha. Not that Buddha is really a god, but you get the point of the question. Was my action sacrilegist as a Catholic, or were my intentions enough to make it a prayerful, mindful act?  In the end, I'm spiritually ok saying a prayer or two to Buddha, as Buddhism has a lot of aspects I really like, such as selflessness and mindfulness. But, it's an interesting question to ask. 

One couple praying decided to bring their pup into the temple. Granted the pup was gentle and not going anywhere outside of that bag, but it was still a funny sight to see. 

The story behind this particular temple is that a monk had a sacred relic he wanted to build a temple for. He placed the relic on the back of a white sacred elephant, let the elephant walk wherever he pleased, and when he stopped at the top of the mountain and circled three times, the monk knew to build the temple to house the relic at that very spot. Hence the elephant tusks on the altar. 

After the temple, we went to the summer palace. I was expecting a palace to walk around; unfortunately, the house was being renovated, but I really don't think it would have been much to look at anyways. But, the grounds surrounding the palace were full of beautiful gardens, particularly roses, so we had a nice time strolling around. This place was even more particular about the dress code. No shorts allowed at all, hence why Drew is wearing the funny pajama pants. So, imagine this. I am wearing a tank top and my jean shorts. I pull out a t-shirt and Drew's longer shorts to cheat the system, but now even that is not enough. So, I have to wear a skirt over everything else. I was essentially the Michelin man waddling around with all my layers on, but at least the roses didn't feel indecent. 

Is my hunny buff or what!?! Look at those arms! Yowza!

After the temples and roses, we drove to this lake just outside of town. It has all of these huts set up around the side of the lake, and you can rent one for the afternoon. There is a restaurant attached to each group of about 30 huts, so they will bring you lunch etc. Nice way to spend a few hours out of the sun reading and eating! We were happy because this felt like a more local way to spend a Sunday afternoon. 

Lunch consisted of a fish cooked in a sour/tangy broth, grilled chicken, and papaya salad. 

We saw a Cloey dog near the restaurant. I thought it was hilarious that they were feeding the dog mainly rice with little bits of meat. What dog likes to eat rice? But then I realized the majority of the kibble that I feed Trig everyday is probably rice or something even less nutritional, like corn husks, so I probably shouldn't be judging. 

That evening we went to the famous Sunday Night Market. It was right by our hotel, which made it really easy to get to and fun to walk around. Not only were they selling all sorts of arts and crafts, much  better stuff that the cheapo Chinese stuff we are used to at markets, but they were giving foot massages on the sidewalks in plastic chairs! Ha! Doesn't look that comfortable, but it would be a nice break from all the walking. 

We probably had about 10 fruit smoothies that night. Delicious! Mango and passionfruit seem to be our go-to. 

This was hysterical and adorable. This little dog was perched on the motorized mini-scooter, and he would drive right up to you, expecting a tip, then turn the scooter around and drive away to someone else. So content, like he was born to do it. Drew had the only blonde moment of his life and thought the dog was actually driving the scooter himself, but that would have been REALLY impressive. I looked around and found a lady with a remote control directing his movements, but I almost wish I hadn't found her. It was much cuter thinking the little dog could do it all. Still adorable. 

We go to markets not to shop but to eat! This is an ant egg Chiang Mai style omelet, meaning it is cooked in a banana leaf. The ant eggs were really ant larva, but the look was much worse than the taste. A bit sour maybe? This was one of those close your eyes and just down it experiences. 

This is the traditional Chiang Mai dish called Khao Soi. Made of yellow noodles in a yellow curry with crisps and pickled onions on top. Fantastic! And only 2 dollars? 

They must have a habit of pickling things, because we also tried pickled fruit, including pickled mango. Not as good as it sounds. 

Giant grilled squids anyone? We didn't try these; I took the picture mostly to make Kane jealous :)

These are flowers carved from soap! One of the prettiest crafts we saw that night. The colors, the colors!!

Temples and Muay Thai Boxing

July 1st, a few Tuesdays ago, was a holiday in Hong Kong, actually the day HK was given back to China. So, Drew took that Monday off from work, and we went on a 4 day trip to Chiang Mai, the 2nd largest city in Thailand, located in the northern section surrounded by "mountains." They were really more like hills, but the temperature was certainly cooler than in Hong Kong, and the air was a bit less muggy, so we'll take it.

We flew out Saturday morning, and got to Chiang Mai around midday. It's only a 2 hour and 45 min flight away. After checking into our hotel, the first order of business was finding some lunch. After walking around a bit, we ended up going to the FreeBird Cafe, a restaurant that gives all profits to a school that it runs for refugees. It was also vegetarian and vegan, but the lack of meat did not equal lack of flavor! It was delicious! I had pumpkin yellow curry, and Drew had a salad sampler, with all sorts of bizarre salads. The lack of meat did mean that Drew couldn't get full; he had to order a full salad after the sampler. Add some fruit smoothies to that, and you have a great meal!

Every business we passed in Chiang Mai had a small alter somewhere near the entrance. This is similar to what we saw in Bali, but these alters were much more elaborate. 

After lunch we went temple hopping within the old section of the city, which was also where we were staying. So, all of these temples were within walking distance. I couldn't believe how elaborate these temples were. Talk about attention to detail! And there were so many of them. There was a temple like this on every block, it seemed. They all had dragons like this one at the entrance. 

They were Buddhist temples, with elaborate statues inside. I was unaware that there was a dress code to go inside of the temples. No short shorts or skirts. Some of the temples were nice enough to provide robes, like bathrobes, so you could go in, but some I just had to skip. I'd be more prepared tomorrow. 

This temple is called Wat Chedi Luang, and it was originally built in 1385. It was crumbling in places, and you weren't allowed to go inside, but it was still cool to see something that old still standing. 

I loved all the elephants built around the bottom level of the temple. A lot of them were missing, but you can imagine what it looked like in its prime. It's also cool to see how important elephants were to them even back then. Nowadays, elephants are used to attract tourists, but they are technically sacred animals. 

This was one of my favorite temples due to the colored glass and the incredible detail. Imagine how long it took to carve all of that!

Every temple had an entourage of monks working or praying. With so many temples around, that meant there were a lot of monks! A lot of them were surprisingly young, under 16 years old. Makes me wonder if these boys made their own choice to become a monk or if they were forced into it out of necessity?

All around the old part of the city there is an ancient city wall in the shape of a square built in the 1300's. There were four main gates in each direction. Nowadays, only those gates and some of the corners remain, but it's very easy to picture what it would have looked like. This was the east gate called Tha Phae Gate. I find it curious that the arrow slits are in the shape of a cross. I didn't think Thailand was ever ruled by Christians, but I wouldn't be surprised. 

For dinner, we found a street stall called the "Wok Guy" which was two guys manning woks, and one lady doing the prep work. These dishes would be cooked in less than a minute, and the woks were so so hot, I could just imagine my eyebrows getting singed off. But, the food was delicious!

After dinner we went to see Muay Thai Boxing. I thought this was a great idea and would be a lot of fun. I also thought we were going to see adults fighting. It turns out the different boxing schools use these touristy attractions to let their students fight in practice matches. So we were, in fact, watching kids fight each other. If they were wearing protective gear, it would have been ok, but they only wore gloves and mouth guards. No helmets, no padding, nothing. The sad thing was, we watched 5 fights, and 4 out of the 5 fights ended in a knockout, meaning one kid took a blow that knocked him unconscious so the deliverer was the automatic victor. I'm not a doctor, but I've seen enough concussions from softball to know that getting one every week starting when you're a teenager is definitely detrimental for your development, and the long term effects are devastating. Again, do these kids really enjoy fighting, or are they stuck in these schools because economically they have no other choice? The moral of the story is 1) The kids should have been wearing helmets, and 2) We shouldn't have been supporting this. Had I known it was kids and not adults, we wouldn't have.