First, sorry I've been rubbish the past few days about posting.... I've put up new pictures, I'll caption them later, but they're there. I have LOADS of pics, so I tried to choose the best based on the tiny thumbnails showing up on the screen.
So last post I was going to find dinner in Chiang Mai on Monday... I went to Aroon Rai across the moat of the old city. First, I apologize, the city is not entirely walled. it just looks like that when you first walk up to the gate and can see a giant brick wall for 100 yards on either side, but no, not walled in... just a moat of sorts. Minus crocodiles or other fearsome creatures. ANYWAY... I got the Chiang Mai Noodles dish at this place which was simply AMAZING. Everything went fine, it started pouring rain and then <BOOM> a transformer RIGHT BEHIND the restaurant, which is open air, blew. Power went out. No matter to me, but when I walked home, half of the street was lit, and the other side was dark.... It was probably at least 20 blocks(square) that were without power. Luckily not my guesthouse. I got back, and read for a bit in the hammock out back and then went to bed.
Woke up at 4:45am to a rooster crowing from next door. Same rooster continued to crow until 9am. I had earplugs. They worked wonders... luckily. I was picked up at 9:30 to go to my cooking class. Already in the truck were a young American couple (on their honeymoon as we all learned later) and an Australian. 2 Girls from Canada joined us, and when we got to the place there was a boy and a girl from England there already.
We started the cooking course with a trip to the local market where we had all the spices, fruits, veggies, etc. explained to us and we bought the ingredients for our chosen courses. One reason I like the Baan Thai Cookery School is because they provide, and we take our own baskets to the market so that they don't have to use plastic bags. :)
We got back and the first dish I made, with 2 others was Phad Thai. Really simple actually. I was surprised that their way of measuring is by how full the spatuala/spoon is, and not measuring cups. Works quite well actually -- less to clean up later!
Then we got to eat our creations. I think it tastes even better knowing it's the fruit of my labor! :) Next I learned to make papaya salad. First, I should tell you about the spices we used. There is a tiny tiny pepper called a, wait for it.... "mouse shit chilli" has anyone ever heard of this before?! probably cause it's so tiny, but MAN can those things pack a punch! so in my papaya salad, shredded and mashed around and created in a giant mortar & pestele... i put one little pepper, since I was told to put 1-5 of them in. Well, as amazing as my papaya salad turned out to be, it was too spicy for me upon sampling. "You can make your dish how you want it, add ingredients... too spicy?? too late" ohwell. now i know.
The next dish I made was that wonderful chicken in coconut milk soup I had tried in Bangkok. This time, when adding the pepper I took one that was literally maybe at most 5mm wide at the end, and probably 1.5cm long. My soup turned out to have spice, but pretty much perfect, for me. Delicious again!
These dishes together were our lunch, and we were given ample time to enjoy them. After lunch, we learned to make curry paste. I was the only one making the Chiang Mai noodles that I had tried the night before, but my curry and the panang curry is the same paste, so I had other people to make it with. This time the mortar and pestle were actually made of stone and heavy. We all went to make our dishes which turned out to be again, amazing! We finished up by eating our deserts that we had made/started earlier. Mine was Mangoes with coconut milk & sticky rice. Divine.
After that I walked home, deciding that as full as I was and feeling like I needed to be rolled... I should walk. I decided one I got back that I was tired and would wait for Julia to go to the night market the next day.
In the morning I got up, checked out, got some breakfast, checked into the Chiang Mai White House in the old city, and found how to get to Doi Suthep -- I think that's how it's spelled (my map is back at the room). You drive halfway up the mountain overlooking the city to get to this wat. This place is sacred because a monk (or was it king?), someone important, put a relic of Buddha on the back of an elephant and it was allowed to roam free, the spot the Elephant died was the spot to mark where the temple should be. It was stunningly beautiful up there.
In the truck on the way up, I met 2 Aussie girls and we walked around together. After we went to get dinner together and in their talking to me they said they wanted to get a trek for the next day (thursday) and I suggested to them that if they were interested in the trek Julia and I were signed up for, that it would be fun to have more people we (I) (sort of) knew along. They went with me to the guesthouse and booked the same trek!
BEFORE THAT THOUGH... while we were at Doi Suthep a big cloud/storm came over the mountain. It wasn't yet raining where we were but winds were a bit strong and we knew the storm was close -- we didn't know it already had come over a different part of the mountain and was storming in Chiang Mai. On the way down around all these windy bends, we hear this LOUD cracking noise and all of the sudden people were yelling "back up! back up back up!" and were motioning us back, but we didnt know if they also meant to get out of the truck. we saw ahead, where we were about to drive, some large (at least 10 feet long) tree branches had come down... we drove around them and continued on our way, but we all thought there was a tree about to fall across the road/ on the truck. Luckily, nothing bad happened and we made it back just fine!
After all that, I was taken to the airport to pick up Julia, which was a bit frantic for me, but worked out in the end. When I got there, I was dropped off at the domestic arrivals because she was coming in from Bangkok -- I went through security, checked the screen, and saw her flight number. After not being able to find signs of where I could go to wait, and running around the terminal (luckily very small) I found the door, and waited. Many people were coming out and as I was standing there I suddenly had a thought when I saw a sign -- she should be coming in international. so i left that terminal, ran to the next one, went through security, ran down to where people were waiting. waited about a minute, didn't see her, checked the screen, didn't see her flight, so i went outside to check on the sidewalk. well then i couldn't get back in that way so i had to run down, go back through security and wait a bit more for international. since her flight wasn't on that screen I thought, oh she must be domestic then, so i ran BACK to the other terminal, back through security, and down to the waiting area. By this time I texted her to see if she knew where she was. she told me she thought international, so i ran BACK to international and told her to come out on the sidewalk, where we ran into each other. YAY!!!!!!!~
So Julia made it with me safe and sound and with all her luggage! We went back to the guesthouse and got her stuff all sorted, went for a bite to eat, and then wandered around the massive night market/bazaar that Chiang Mai is known for. We didn't buy things but we scoped it all out. Then home to bed for our early morning trek!
