As stated in my previous entry, it is very rare to come across Americans while traveling. I must have some form of Ameri-dar (american radar) because everybody I have encountered these past few days have been from the states. Granted, I've met up with friends from home, but still, this is very peculiar! For example, today's agenda consisted of a full day cooking class outside of the city. The owner of the school made proper arrangements to pick me up from my hotel, along with a couple of the other American guys I met a few days ago. From there, we proceeded to pick up my friend Mike (from portland) and his buddy (from NY) and were soon introduced to another American couple from NY. The entire cooking class sported the red, white and blue. How is this possible? Ameri-dar.
For those of you who have experienced my cooking/mixing abilities in the kitchen, you'd be very impressed with my performance today. I chopped, pounded, fried and carved my way to a Thai cooking certification. The cooking school carted us to the market where we learned about curries, snake string beans and chilis. From there we headed to a beautiful house by the university where we created our array of Thai dishes. Watch out food critics, I'm bringing my knowledge of Thai cooking back with me to the states!
Most of yesterday was spent exploring the city of Chang Mai. Picture a square plate of spaghetti with the utensils properly placed at the side. The square plate represents the man-made moat surrounding all four sides of the city. The spaghetti relates to the roads, curving and winding every which way inside the moat. The streets make no sense and I've just been relying on landmarks to orient myself. You would think that the square moat around the old city would represent order and that they'd adopt a simple grid system...yeah...that never happened.
Once outside of the moat, there are few main roads that lead to a river (yes, this is real), the airport, university and some national parks. It's a congested city, still full of pollution from the multiple burnings going on, but it's much better than Bangkok. I actually managed to go for a run tonight and haven't coughed up a lung yet!
My tummy is requesting a meal, so I must sign off. There's a fantastic crepe stand around the corner waiting for me. Freshly made batter spread across a grill, with bananas and chocolate. Heaven in a Thai napkin, for 15 baht...roughly 50 cents. Perfection.
