A Thai cooking course in Chiang Mai has been on our must-do list since before we left, and it didn’t disappoint. We started off with a trip to the market to be amazed at the different types of rice, noodles and vegetables available, and hopefully some will be in the shops at home too. Back in the kitchen we were slicing lemon grass, crushing mini-garlic and chillis to make our Tom Yum soup and Phat Thai noodles. The most valuable lesson was that if it doesn’t taste right, it can be corrected: too spicy means put coconut milk in, too salty (my overzealous use of fish sauce) means put sugar in. We also had a go at pounding some herbs and spices to make green curry paste, along with stories about how lovers meet over the making of curry paste. Inevitably we made a Thai green curry, and also a chicken and cashew nuts dish, not bad for an afternoons work, and we definitely regretted having lunch before the course! The final valuable lesson learnt was that it’s much more fun to cook when someone else cleans up after you.
That night we visited Chiang Mai’s top tourist attraction, the night market. Hundreds of stalls selling essentially the same things: fake watches, fake dvds, silk, chopsticks, and fabric bags of all shapes and sizes. We filled our bags, squeezed in a roti (pancake) before catching a Tuk-tuk home.