July 9, 2011
Andrea and I waited by the gates of our hotel for a cooking school pickup, and to our surprise a couple of familiar faces would be in the van. Alex and Kate were already in the van, they had been picked up at the Eco Hotel- where they decided to stay in Chiang Mai. When we got to the school, we soon realized that they were not in our half day class but in a full day.
We met our instructor, whose English wasn't perfect but it was good enough to get the gist. The remainder of our group was a French family whose kids resembled those of Don Draper's kids on Mad Men. They had a bit of ADHD but were tolerable. Our other classmate was a young French woman as well. They would require translations once in a while, and I inadvertently would step in to give the answers at which point our instructor jokingly called me the "second teacher".
We started out with noodles, I opted to make my favorite Pad See Uw- apparently if mispronounced people will think you want to eat humans. Not being one for the occasional cannibalism, I chose to get the wording correctly. We followed this up by making curries the old fashioned way- with mortar and pestle, we were told to imagine the peppers were someone that really irritated us. That really seemed to get the juices flowing and soon the ingredients were pounded into a fine paste before being added to coconut milk for a sauce. We wrapped up with a stir fried basil chicken, and a coconut milk soup.
By the time, we got back to the hotel, we had a little bit of time to shower and relax before Andrea and I headed over to a spa for an afternoon Thai Massage. When you haven't had a massage for a year, you tend to develop a lot of knots in muscles, so there were points where it felt the masseuse was stabbing me in the neck with her elbows. Not exactly pleasant at the time, but it got the job done. Andrea giggled at points during the massage, especially when the masseuse hit her funny bone. After an hour of thai massage, we were separated and I went upstairs for an aromatherapy massage which was much more relaxing for me and Andrea went for some reflexology.
Rested and relaxed we headed over for some sushi at Gigantea. According to the research I did, this was a favorite of the Japanese community in Chiang Mai. I knew the address of the place and we had walked by the area the did before but Andrea and even myself started to doubt my sense of direction when we hit the street at a different point. This is one of those streets that curve and was packed, so it was easy to lose a sense of where you were. Hungry and tired, Andrea got frustrated, and I relented and went back to the street we knew better and find our way from there. We eventually found our way there and the sushi was as good as promised, it was just a little on the pricey size. I was still hungry afterwards because I couldn't afford to pay for more food there, so I ended up getting Whopper JR near the night bazaar.
July 10, 2011
With my stomach virus still giving me problems at breakfast and Andrea's mom not feeling all that well either, we decided not to go to the National Park for the day. The other half of the group- Alex, Kate, Linda, and Jen went on their own tour- which includes a visit to the 'long neck' village (you can google that to find out more details, but people basically use metal to extend their necks), white water rafting (I can't swim very well...nuff said), and another elephant village (Jen would later say she had to yell at one of the trainers for being rough with an elephant- he was beating it with a stick). Andrea and I sleep in more and watch some Asian Food Channel, which Andrea had become addicted to.
In the afternoon, we took a look in Chinese market, an then we went shopping along Thai Pae Rd, stopping for some mango sticky rice at Ratana's kitchen (a very economical restaurant that we had tried earlier in the trip- $2 for Pad Thai, c'mon). We stepped into an old colonial building that had been changed into a cafe/ceramics store. The building was beautiful and the garden cafe was idyllic. I ended up splurging on myself, by buying a bar of scented soap while Andrea bought some ceramics.
Later that night, we headed over to The Duke's, a western food restaurant, and had probably the best simulation of western food I had in the entire trip. I had a massive burger called the "Va Va Voom", which is a sloppy chili burger with Australian beef with side of fries and a hard cider. Andrea and I also shared some chili pepper poppers that dwarfed any Jalapeno poppers I've seen over here. We split the burger, and I had some of her steak sandwich- which was good but it was no burger.
July 11, 2011
In the morning before our flight, we headed out to do some last minute souvenir shopping along our street before the van came to pick us up and take us to the airport. I found a lot of my souvenirs that morning because at least I could be assured of the quality of the products versus some of the shady goods at the night market. We stopped for a tea at the most feminine tea shop- pink was literally everywhere- hot pink. I had a Chiang Mai Ice Tea which suspiciously tasted like Starbucks Passion Tea Lemonade but was still tasty. I had some cucumber sandwiches which may have been plenty for a doll at children's tea party but it was clear afterwards that I would need to stock up on snacks before our cheapo flight on Air Asia.
On the plane, it was a bit of a flashback to our Bangkok minibus ride. The plane was up and down like a roller coaster for the first 5 minutes, and would have justified anyone's fear of flying. For the record, I was not scared, just a little nauseous- and getting over a stomach virus might I add. Thankfully, no need for the sick bag. The girl next to me just sort of giggled at the situation.
By the time we got to back to Singapore, there was just enough time to figure out our transport to Indonesia for the next day.
Next blog...."The First and Last Resort"...
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