Mastering the Art of Thai Cooking

We woke at 8 AM in anticipation for our day long Thai cooking class that we had booked before leaving SF. We were given strict instructions not to eat a big breakfast, but "mama," Semay's mother and Moon Dance's cook, enjoyed feeding her guests and didn't seem to take out request seriously. We got 1 western breakfast with fried eggs, ham, sausage (what we would call a mini hot dog) and oj, and one Thai breakfast of jhok, or rice porridge soup. We were picked up from our guest house at 9:30 AM and brough over to A Lot of Thai cooking school, a small family run school in the home of Yui, Kwan and their two kids http://www.alotofthai.com. In the car, we met our classmates, two young girls from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan who had quit their jobs to travel for 5 months, Billy, an Australian guy from Melbourne who was also on extended holiday, a family from Austria, and Mike, a young guy from New Orleans who had spent the last 10 months travelling as a freelance journalist. At the moment he was writing an article on cooking schools in Chiang Mai for Travel and Leisure Magazine (so cool!). The class turned out to be amazing! We each cooked six dishes: pad thai, stir fried chicken/vegetables with cashew nuts, vegetable spring rools, tom yum gung (spicy shrimp soup), chicken/vegetables in green curry, and sticky rice with mango. Yui, our instructor, was very sweet, knowledgeable, funny and passionate about cooking. In the middle of the class, we took a trip to the local market where Yui helped to de-mystify the local specialities. We learned about everything from local fruits and vegetables to the different kinds of rice, sauces, eggs, seafood, herbs, dessert, and so much more! This was a definitely a highlight of our class and our trip! By the end of the cooking class, we were so full we could hardly move. We ended the evening with an interesting 2 hour game of Chinese Checkers with Lars, Semay, Hiroshi and Marcel, an interesting Swiss guy who had a thing for Thai "lady boys," one of which we met that night - Rose. Kiran loves to share this story so I'm sure you'll more when we get back!

On to North Thailand...

From Phuket, we took a flight to Bangkok then Chiang Mai, arriving at 2:45 PM. While waiting to pick up our suitcase, Kiran thought he spotted an old friend from Cal, but I wasn't convinced. Deciding that there was only one way to find out, we walked over to where he was standing and strategically struck up a conversation about Cal, Sure enough we had run into a fraternity brother, Rabin Marfatia, half way around the world! Mr. A, a hired taxi driver picked us up from the airport and brought us to our guest house, Moon Dance on the River. The house was owned and run by Lars, a Swedish ex-finance guy (40) and his Thai girlfirned, Semay (22). The house was lovely - four rooms, gorgeous Thai artwork and furniture, a beautiful garden, and of course generous Thai welcome gifts like flowers on the bed and fresh bottles of water. We booked this guest house becasue it was the only one showing availability on the internet, but in the first few minutes, we could tell that it was going to be an interesting stay! The first guest we met was Hiroshi, a kind young Sony engineer from Tokyo. He told us a little about his week in Chiang Mai and then we headed off to do some exploring of our own. We took a tuk tuk to the Good View Restaurant, a popular spot for visitors that was right on the river. We sat outside enjoying the view while feasting on another saefood yam (unfortunately this one was made for farang (foriegn) palate) and fresh fish. After dinner, we walked to Chiang Mai's famous night bazaar and broused through the hundreds of stalls of local handicrafts, knock off wallets, purses, sunglasses and watches, jewelry, soaps, textiles and local artwork. The bazaar was enormous! Feeling too tired to see it all, we decided to stop browsing and Kiran got his third Thai massage for a whapping $2!