cooking class!

Folks go to Chiang Mai to see the temples and the elephants or travel into the nearby mountains.  Conrad and Peter go there to do nothing by and in the pool.  But also, apparently, to take a cooking class.

What a fun morning for us.  We went light on breakfast because of the four-hour session to come.  Before 9:00 we were picked up and driven all of a block and a half away.  Too funny, and yes, we did walk home afterward.  We were joined by a young couple from Italy, and the four of us set to work under the fun and patient instruction of Olive.  In the kitchen to taste some things and start prep.  To the garden behind the school for some show and tell with smelling and tasting.  A market visit.  Back to the school to really get cooking.

We had a lot of fun, truly.  And I felt pretty proud of what we made.  Am I a pad Thai expert?  Nope.  But what I made wasn’t nearly as sweet as what I have in the US.  We cooked our own portions and ate our own food, and we could choose options that were different from each other as well as make it as spicy (or not) as we liked.  I was the bravest with the chiles, and I was far from brave!  I made green papaya salad, tom kha soup, khao soi curry, and contributed to the sticky rice dessert.  Conrad did a nice job.  I was the teacher’s pet.  The other couple were friendly.  Olive was great!  Asia Scenic was the name of the school, and I recommend them.

That left us rather full and thinking it would be a good idea to cancel a big dinner reservation later that evening.  We waddled home, napped, then joined one of the hotel staff in the courtyard by the lobby to make colourful paper decorations called tung.  

A nice little activity, and kudos to the hotel for offering such things daily.

Pool time after that,

then we showered and made ourselves pretty to head back across the street to North Gate Spirits when its bar opened.  A couple of rounds of drinks including their attempt at a Last Word (not bad at all, but they really didn’t trust the recipe we told them), chat with the staff.  Once again we were the only ones there.  A nice little evening of it.  

We finished with dinner at the hotel restaurant for a third time,

then to the room to unwind.  Packing could wait until morning.

not the day we planned, but…

.. it was the day we had.  And it was a good day at that!

Some back story:  Conrad and I had booked a day-long tour through a site that draws on local guides for such excursions.  We had used it before with great success in Italy, and I thought it might be a good option for Thailand.  So I reserved a tour out of the city here and two a national park and other sites for the two of us.  That was back in early August.

By the time of our trip here, no word back from the guide.  Unusual, but I was preoccupied with the Vietnam portion of the trip.  I didn’t yet press it.  By the time we reached Chiang Mai, though, less than a few days before the tour, still nothing.  No confirmation of pick up (where and what time), no questions about customization or accommodations, no guidance on what to bring.  Very odd.  I sent a message through the site on Wednesday.

No response on Wednesday.  Nor on Thursday.  At least not until we got out of our spa appointment that evening and saw that there was a WhatsApp message from the guide.  Time and place of pick up, can he bring a trainee.  We were so relieved that we agreed to everything.  But it didn’t sit well with us.  The communication was outside of the site when it should have been in the site.  The WhatsApp number was not the same as the one listed in the site.

We went to dinner, and I stewed.  During the meal I sent a message to the site with screenshots attached, letting them know that we felt uncomfortable with how this all happened and that we wanted the site to cancel the trip at no penalty to us.  The site, to their credit, acted fast and totally in our favour.

And that is how Conrad and I had a free day yesterday!  And we took advantage by having a really easy day.  As we were bobbing in the pool before going out for evening drinks, we talked about how this part of the vacation has been going.  One mild activity a day these days and a lot of mellow down time.  And we are unapologetic about that.

Yesterday’s “big” activity?  The two of us were the only participants in a guided walk in the old town of Chiang Mai as offered by the hotel a few times a week.  One of the hotel staff took us to three temples and down a little street of food shops and restaurants.  She was a terrific guide, answering all of our questions.  We had an enjoyable two hours with her, and we were blessed by a monk for whom we brought food.

Once the tour was done, it was lunchtime for us.  We headed to a place we saw on the tour, a little corner restaurant called Rodlamun.  We’re getting better each meal with ordering the right amount of food as well, sticking to three appetizers:  fried catfish with green mango salad, fried turnip cake, and chicken satay.  All were good although I am not sure where the catfish was!

After lunch we spent an hour or so browsing in souvenir shops on the way back to the hotel, picking up various items.  Back at the hotel, I did some laundry in the tub (I worry about tshirts and shirts shrinking if we send them out - it has happened to me before), then headed to the library above the hotel restaurant.  Postcards, reading, a cosmo each.  

That made for a lowkey afternoon finished off with a dip in the pool.

Evening fell, and we headed almost across the street from the hotel side entrance to a small bar we noticed two days early.  North Gate is a local distillery that makes variations on shochu, a Japanese style spirit.  They use sticky rice and sugarcane and have started making one from cacao husks.  It’s not a spirit I like enough to bring a bottle home, but the labels are so cool that we were tempted.  Ah well.  We chatted with the bartenders - we had the bar to ourselves - and had a couple of rounds.  The first up for me, the Makshury.  Gin, Fernet Branca, sweet vermouth, a Japanese plum liqueur.  The gin was infused with mountain onion root.  The drink was garnished with crispy pork belly dotted with mountain onion root.  It was an interesting and good cocktail that had me thinking about what I was tasting and appreciating the savoury notes.  Round two for me was the Lum Tæ, their version of a milk punch made from one of their spirits and garnished with purple sticky rice.  I liked it, but I preferred the first cocktail.  Maybe I should have had them in the opposite order.

We said our goodbyes, and perhaps we will swing by this evening.  Feeling unambitious about dinner, we headed to the hotel restaurant.  We’ve been liking the food, and it is convenient.  We shared a shredded chicken salad and a duck curry.  Both were good although the duck was a little tough.  

No matter.  A nice time of it.

Back to the room, to bed soon after.  Today is our last full day, and it will be a busy morning:  a Thai cooking class together.  Yay!  I’m genuinely excited.