Chiang Mai

The next day we headed north again, this time to Chiang Mai. Accompanied by our friends from the hostel we experienced a very hot and sweaty bus ride. Best summed up as not pleasant. I should mention, however, that getting to the bus station, and getting around in general, can be quite fun. One mode of transportation has you sitting in the back of a small pickup truck with a little canopy and you zoom at fast speeds through the city streets. As you can see below it feels sometimes like you're part of an interactive video game.



Upon arriving in Chiang Mai and finding a guesthouse we played another favorite game - killing mosquitos in your room before going out to dinner.

Today we took a cooking class at the Pad Thai Cookery School. This was very cool. They pick you up in aforementioned pickup truck, pick up other students throughout Chiang Mai, and wisk you off to the local market where you learn about local fruits, vegetables, and spices.



Our class was pretty small - 11 students. The school is in the country somewhere about 10 minutes outside of Chiang Mai in a picturesque setting with big fields, rolling hills, etc. Everyone has their own cooking station. In many ways it felt like Home Economics from 5th grade without the jello parfait and cool whip. Over the course of 6 hours we made 4 main dishes, 1 appetizer, and 2 desserts. Our last "dish" was a big flamer, which freaked me out a bit. The experience was great and the food was fantastic. I now have my day Thai cooking certificate so friends and family beware!!







Big lunch means no dinner for me toinght so I can spend time updating the travel log. I'm quite excited for bed tonight since for the first time we have what might almost be considered a proper mattress. Not great, but closer to what is comfortable. Of course there is no top sheet, towel, toilet paper, etc.



Tomorrow is Michael's birthday so I'm hoping to have a lazy day and a nice, non-Thai, dinner.