Cooking school leads to night of debauchery (who knew there was a corrolation)

Rama Guesthouse has waaaay better beds AND our own bathroom AND our room is only on the second floor AND I can wear my shoes, that bare foot business is killing me. Our first night was a very lovely sleep on a reasonable mattress. The extra 100 baht for hot water consisted of the desk lady, Lyn, giving us the handle to the hot water tap. The shower leaves a bit to be desired but warm water is all good. My hair is starting to look like straw though. 2 in 1 pantene - Psshhh.



Lyn of Rama Guesthouse

Before we went to bed we wanted to check out the Night Bazaar. But first we decided to get hopelessly lost trying to find it. Some nice English speaking couple (American?) took us by the hand and navigated us out of the maze of alleys and then pointed us in the right direction once we were on a real street. Have I mentioned that the lay out of Chang Mai is insane. Basically a huge grid (good) interspersed with a hive of alleys and lanes with no clear naming or numbering system (bad).

We found the market and it was huge!, No, HUGE!. It just went on and on. There was lots of repeats in the million stalls but it was fascinating to see all of the stuff. I have now started shopping. There is no way I can wait until Bangkok, I will just have to carry an extra bag for the next while. Plus, after the whole 'no shopping' in Dar es Salaam situation, I am afraid to leave things to the end again. So I have a few gifts and a few things for myself. Not to much but stuff is so cheap. It is really hard to get my head around the baht conversion. First of all I keep saying Pesos and converting 1:10 like a peso. But I have two numbers in my head now that help, 500 baht is 20 bucks and 50 baht is 2 bucks. sounds simple but it took awhile to hit on that.

We couldn't find our way back (or even out of the market) so we just jumped in a tuk tuk and headed home for a very good sleep. My calves have almost recovered but my feet are not happy with me. I must wear walking shoes to walk - again, it sounds simple but it took several days for it to dawn on me.

The next morning we were up bright and early for our 8:30 pick up for cooking school. There are a million here but we went with the one that drives out to a farm for the day (don't tell Canada Customs that, we want to keep our shoes). Tellingly, it is called Thai Farm Cooking School. They picked us up in a truck and we crammed into the back, there were 11 of us.



in the back of the truck

I have to say, a really excellent group. 2 French couples, another woman from Victoria, a Swiss couple, an older German man and a young guy from California. Everyone else was on extended vacations, years for one of the French couples. They were all bouncing around Asia.



Aylin (from Victoria) and Gabe (from California)

Any way, our class started at the market where we learned about rice (there must have been 30 different kinds) and coconut milk/cream and various sauces required for Thai cooking. We had about 20 minutes to wander around on our own and buy anything we wanted but fortunately, we didn't have to figure out what we needed for the class. I bought conditioner for my hair - priorities!



Fish at the market - waiting for a new home! (well, I didn't want to be the one to tell them different)



So many types of rice



Veggies



Sauces by the dozens, unfortunately all with Thai labels so I didn't buy any

Then we were back in the truck and off to the farm.



Our class, suiting up, aprons all round



Tour of the garden

Our cooking teacher was Tommy who was very amusing and his English was very good.



Tommy whose only problem with English was that he couldn't pronouce 'juice', he said jew-iss.



Our rice and clean up lady, we were never introduced so I don't know her name

We got to pick what we wanted to make, Val and I chose different dishes so we could share. I picked Chicken Coconut soup, red curry, papaya salad, pad Thai and mangoes with sticky rice. Val picked Tom Yam soup (sweet and sour sort of), chicken with cashews, green curry, spring rolls and bananas in coconut milk. Our first order of business was to learn to make curry paste. Surprisingly easy if you are willing to spend 20-30 minutes pounding the mortar and pestle. There is a certain sense of pride when Tommy would wander by and say - good, you can stop.



My red curry paste - in progress



Class at their stations

Then we took our new curry paste and made it into chicken curry dishes with eggplant, pumpkin, onion, coconut milk and various leaves and other bits of flora. Once that was in a bowl, we were off and making soup. I have to say, I wasn't a big fan of the soup. I picked the coconut milk soup (I wish I remembered the real name) because we always order it at Siam Thai when Christine comes to visit from Halifax, but it wasn't really the same, they put tomato in it here. Papaya salad on the other hand is easy and super yummy. I'm not sure one can buy a green papaya in Victoria though.


Val was busy with her own dishes until we met at the outside table for lunch to eat our creations. It was amazing. And so much food.



My first course, this doesn't even include Val's dishes.  So much to eat

We were stuffed and only ate half of the food we had. Tommy announced that we had an hour to wander about before we would start making the next round. OHHHH, we had forgotten about the rest of it. It was blazing hot by this time so we mostly just sat around with the others and drank lemon grass tea. I tried to bird watch a bit but no self respecting bird is out in 35+ degree weather at 2 in the afternoon.

Next round, I made pad Thai, again super easy.



My Pad Thai. One of the best we had in Thailand, if I may say so myself.

Val made spring rolls, not as easy but very worth the effort.



Val cooking the spring roll stuffing.

Then we sat down for the next meal. We shared one spring roll and had one bite each of the pad Thai. We did eat all of the mango with sticky rice but none of the banana in coconut milk which was actually quite awful, note to self, do not boil a banana for 15 minutes and expect it to still be tasty. All of our left overs (sans banana) went into baggies and sent home with us. We got back to the guest house at about 4 pm.

One of the french couples, Fred and Sophie, were keen to get together later. Gabe, the young guy was hitting on Aylin and clearly wanted a second crack at it and I guess Aylin wasn't adverse, because all of a sudden at the last minute before the major players got out of the truck, an impromptu plan was formed to get together for beer later. (ed note: turns out both had partners back home so I don't think any romance was intended but I didn't learn that until later)



View on the ride home

Back at the guesthouse, we were pretty bagged but managed to not fall asleep. Eventually, we ate our food right out of the plastic bags (only 5 hours unrefrigerated so better than usual) with chopsticks. It was all still delish.



Yummy



Yup, definitely yummy

Then we gussied up (changed our tank tops) and headed out for the evening. A quick stop at a market to buy a string of pearls (really), bank machine and then off to the pub. Most everyone showed up (the Swiss couple were the only no-shows). A couple of beer and crazy travel stories. I am convinced that India is a must do. After a while we moved on to another bar, the So Good Bar, where we were the only customers. We stayed until about midnight and the party disbanded. We got lots of good advise about Chang Mai and Thailand in general.

Tomorrow we hang out with elephants. More on that later. Joanne

A crazy day in Bangkok and then the night train to Chang Mai

We are still dealing with a bit of jet lag. Our first full day in Bangkok, once we found our Budget room, was pretty low key. We looked around the shops but we didn't want to buy anything because we knew we were coming back and we don't want to carry anything yet. We found our first noodle lady and ordered chicken noodle stuff and a spring roll.



Noodle ladies, so many to chose from



Our first street dinner, in progress

Needless to say, it lived up to expectations. I wasn't so sure about the chicken she pulled out of the paper bag but that's livin' on the edge. With Air. We are still dealing with a bit of jet lag so our first full day was actually more like 3/4 since we went to bed at about 8pm. 1st day intestinal fortitude: good.

The sleep that night was brutal. Apparently, I am the one whining about the hard bed. I must have woken up 7 times, wondering what the mattress could possibly be made of. Not wood or cement because it had about 2 mm give when you stood on it. But not anything soft like foam or fabric. I even looked in the morning but whatever magical new flexible steel-like material was covered with vinyl. Plus, that fifth floor didn't seem too bad at first but I guess the 10 times up and down in bare feet was more than my poor calfs could stand. Both Val and I woke up with aching legs. I know, we have all gone to the gym and survived but this was unbelievable. Two days later it still is unbelievable, every step up or down is a new experience in muscle pull. But we carried on to our day. We spent an hour or so birdwatching the tree outside of our room. There is one little green bird out there that apparently does not exist but we did get a few new ones. Once we were left with only pigeons to look at we set off for breakfast. We went western for that meal. Val had eggs and I had french toast. We get more adventurous as the trip progresses.

Our plan for the day was to walk to the Grand Palace and see what all the fuss is about. So off we go, no real idea other than 'go left at the corner' of how to get there.



A lovely set of bridges to cross to get to the Grand Palace

Again, we had much advise from many helpful men. They all said the same thing. Grand Palace is closed, go see the Reclining Buddha. Stubborn as we are, we just kept heading to the GP, we made it to the wall that surrounds it when another helpful man arrived. He didn't seem to be selling anything, he also said the GP was closed for a ceremony (we think the king was changing the jade Buddha's clothes, a tri-annual event) but he said because it is a national day of something or other, we can view the King's new palace for free and there are all sorts of festivities going on there. It is all very confusing but we ended up in a tuktuk.
A mini car like thing that is world famous as the symbol of Thailand (plus a death defying ride).



Our tuktuk driver



Val hanging on for dear life

Mr. TukTuk took us to a tiny wat (temple) which we looked at and then off we went to the 'House of Fashion' were we could have a suit made to order right then and there. I now understand how a certain young friend of mine ended up with a suit. We both made it out suitless but I did give in and buy a couple of very small gifts for a couple folks. Off we went to another unmemorable Wat and then off to the jewelery factory.



Our first wat was not too impressive



But a zoom lens helps see the details



Wat number 2 - getting better



Bell on the roof



Buddha is watching you

I have to say so that we don't sound like total rubes, we knew this was going to happen, but we figured it was a small price to pay for hours of TukTuk ride. Anyway, we bought cheap 'trip rings', that's what I am calling them because we bought the same ring by chance. After that, Mr. TukTuk didn't even bother with another Wat, we went straight to another fashion house. Some poor girl arrived at the same time as us and whispered 'did you ask to come here? Why are we here, I wanted to go to BlahBlah Wat". We told her to go with it, she would get there eventually. After that stop, we told Mr. TukTuk to take us back to the Grand Palace since it should now be open. We forgot about the festivities at the new palace. We did ask as we were leaving, if in fact, the Grand Palace was closed in the morning and it was so it wasn't a total scam. I have to say, it was fun.

Then we spent an hour or two in the GP and temple of the jade Buddha. For those of you who have been, you will totally understand that any pictures we took will not do this place any justice. There is enough decoration to make your head explode. Everything is tiles, painted, carved, gilded, groomed beyond belief. I have inadequate pictures for future reference.

So much gold







So many statues

And a million Buddhas



Fat Buddha



Skinny old Buddha



Young svelte Buddha



Spires and more spires

Spires everywhere


If it isn't gilded, it is so intricately detailed you have to do a close up. This entire building is covered with these tiny individually shaped and painted flowers

More detail than the brain can comprehend (I warned you this place was impossible to photograph)






A hand painted and gilded mural that ran hundreds of feet

It was so hot by now and we had to wear long pants and sleeves that we were dying. I have to say, the best part of the Palace was seeing the ridiculous pants and skirts they forced onto the poor unsuspecting shorts clad visitor. Many men in elephant print pants in varying shades of lavender and periwinkle. It was almost worth the heat stroke. Once we had seen pretty much all we could take we tried to leave. No easy feat, there is not signage and the paths are random and circular. We finally made it out but not before, in sight of the exit gate, we met Mr. Longboat. Clearly sun stoked and drunk on touristing, we agreed to a longboat tour of the canals. Again, it was fun and we saw parts of Bangkok that would have been completely inaccessible. Pictures forthwith.



Tours boat at dock



Blurry Val on the boat



Another, very similar boat



A house on the river



To be fair, there were lots of expensive houses too.



Monks at the river's edge.

Then back to the Khoa San Rd for a bite of dinner and to get our stuff. I bought a calamari plate that was so hot I could hardly eat it. Val tasted it and her whole face turned red. I had to follow it with half a pineapple and a beer before I could work my mouth properly. Note to self, ask to taste before buying food off of a wheeled buffet table in the middle of the road, especially if it is the exact same colour as hot chili paste. The Budget was storing our bags for us, so we picked up our stuff and hopped in a cab to the train station where we had booked the night train to Chang Mai for 7:30 PM.



hundreds of tourists waiting to leave Bangkok, there are not enough seats at the station



Leaving the Bangkok station



Waiting at the next station

Serious kudos to Missy here. She had advised us to get two bottom bunks across from each other as opposed to a bottom and top bunk. Brilliant for many reasons.
1. Bottom bunks seats face forward
2. bottom bunks have windows and more head room
3. who can climb the teeny tiny ladder to the top bunk with seized calfs



Forward facing top bunk seat

Only problem is that it was a full train so we had two other British girls in the top bunks. Proper tourist etiquette says one of us had to give up our forward facing seat to one of them so that they could sit together, oh well. We had dinner on the train, I had Red Curry with duck and some sort of chicken and cashew side dish and Val had some pork thing. It was OK but I will have to have red curry again since I am sure it can be better.



Val eating dinner on the train

Eventually a man came by and turned down our beds. By this time it was after 9 and I was pretty much beat. Intestinal fortitude that day: under consideration.



Ready for bed.

The train was so noisy. I kept thinking this must be what it is like to be a tiny person living in a wobbly wheeled shopping cart. There was screeching, banging, jolting, wire rattling. But surprisingly, we both slept pretty well. The bed was so much more comfortable that the Budget bed. We both woke up at about 6 AM (we are almost on Thai time).



Sunrise from the train window

They gave us breakfast of Rice soup, mine with prawns, Val's with chicken. It was yummy. The coffee was not. Then we bird watched from the train until we arrived in Chang Mai. A ride into town in what we think was some guys family minivan, and we wandered around for a bit, found the Rama Guesthouse (location unknown, I will only find my way back if Val stays near) and now have a room with earth made beds and only one flight up. Yeahhh. Only 6 bucks a night each. This time the big luxury was hot water instead of Air Conditioning. It is cooler here. Our hostess Lyn, is setting us up with all sorts of touristy things to do. Discount for us, shhhh, don't tell the other guests.

Tomorrow we are going to cooking school. I will save the rest of our plans for further action packed posts. intestinal fortitude today: under a practical nurses advise and medicinal care. Off to the night bazaar. Joanne.