Chiang Mai, Oh My

On Sunday morning we arrived in Chiang Mai.  It is a very cute city.  Even though it is Bangkok's second largest city, it feels very small.  Within Chiang Mai, there is a walled city with a moat that is in the center of the city.  Our guest house is in the walled city.  We are staying at this really cute guest house that has little tikki huts for rooms, a really lush garden and a free breakfast!

Sunday morning/afternoon we just waited for our room, played on the internet and slept.  At around 5:30 we decided to head to this Sunday Market that we heard about.  The market was about 50 yards down the street from our guesthouse.  Since we heard about it in passing (like oh that is something to do), we were expecting a market about half the size of a football field.  But when we got to the end of the street we look both ways and the market went on forever.  This was the largest street market/fair I have seen in Southeast Asia and probably my entire life.  There were food, clothing, jewelery, purse, cloth, traditional crafts, paintings, massage stands lined up for what seemed like 10 miles!  It was alot of fun because almost all the stands had different and unique items.  A lot of the markets we have been to sell basically the same stuff.  There was also a lot of different kinds of food that I have not seen on this trip.  Like a huge mound of jet black jello looking stuff, pink pickled roots, and a lot of dried seafood on sticks.  I also saw a hamburger stand, oddly enough.  I was not feeling too adventurous so I had a banana waffle.  It was still very good.  The bananas here are so much better than the ones in Calif.  After about 4 hours of walking up and down the streets we were tired and headed back to our guest house.  I could not believe that we were out shopping for so long and never made it to the end.   But I was really tired and my feet hurt.  I can now understand why there were so many feet massage stands.  I thought it was a little gross and didn't want to get one.  Simply lying down was enough relief for me.  When we got back  I was so tired that i just  put on my pjs and went to bed.  Earlier in the day I had signed up for a cooking class, so I had to be up kinda early...9ish.  I think I fell asleep in 2 minutes, I was really tired after not really sleeping the night before.

On Monday, I took a 6 hour cooking class.  It was so much fun!  There were about 25 people in the class and the class took place at the main instructors house about 20 minutes away.  But we first went to the market to get the products we needed for the days dishes.  We were each assigned an ingredient to pick up.  Mine was Kaffir leaves, they are used in a lot of thai dishes including curries and salads.   We then drove to our instructors house and went into a demonstration room and they showed us how to make Pad Siewe, my favorite!  We went to our work stations and copied what they just showed us.  We ate that and then we had a demonstration on how to make steamed fish in a banana leaf, then made it.  Then demonstration on how to make curry, made that and then a demonstration on how to make cashew nut chicken and then ate the curry and cashew nut and banana leaf dish.   There was so much food, so I had tastes of everything.  Even so, I was stuffed!  We then had a demonstration on how to make this banana and coconut milk desert, made that, then a demonstration of how to make spicy prawn salad, made that and then ate both together.  I am so happy that I took this course because I learned how to make my two favorite dishes, green curry and pad siewe and learned about a few more that i really liked.  I can't wait to come home and cook it all for you guys!  I hope you like it spicy!  I also got a cookbook with many other recipes, they all look so good.  I will be sad to leave Thailand and not eat Thai food everyday.  It is one of my favorite cuisines!