Cooking Classes Thai Style....

This morning Alvo had an early morning phonecall from Chloe who did not realise we were 3 hours behind Oz and I was wide awake so decided to get up and go for a walk to the park where I have been told they practice tai chi-chi gong. Alvo was up for a walk also, we are going to have a big day of cooking so it will be nice to start with a negative calorie count. It only took us about 20 mins to get to the park and there were a couple of groups practicing and quite a few people walking on the path that meanders through the park which has a couple of large ponds filled with fish and a bridge or two. There is also a large colourful dragon made of material placed in the middle of the park, it is lovely. After wandering on the path I asked one of the class participants if they were in fact practicing chi gong, she answered yes and a couple of the locals told me that it doesn't matter that I am a beginner and I can just join in for free. Think I might take them up on the offer if it isn't raining in the morning. No breakfast for us this morning as the cooking class offers 7 dishes so we just walked back to the hotel for a rest before our pick up. Our friend Alila came to our hotel just before 9am and waited with us for the songthew (red truck taxi) to arrive. We stood and chatted about many things, she is an interesting person and lovely to chat to. When the songthew arrived we were whisked off to the market so we could learn about the local ingredients, the market place was so clean and neat, Alvo's favourite snack of pork crackling had a whole shop dedicated to it.....photo op. On arriving at the cooking school we were seated and explained the menu. There is alot to choose from and we each get to choose one dish from each of the 7 categories. We chose different dishes of course so we could learn and taste each others food. Our choices were....Tom Yum soup, spicy soup, pad thai, drunken noodles, penang curry paste, jungle curry paste (both made into curry dishes), green mango salad, glass noodle salad, banana in coconut milk, sticky rice with young coconut, chicken with cashew nut and tofu with holy basil.....phew, can't believe I remembered them all. We cooked and ate and cooked and ate, Alvo's drunken noodle dish was the cooking highlight as you wait until the oil is smoking and when you add the chicken a massive flame shoots into the air, so much so that Alvo was left checking her eyebrows.....would have been cheaper than a wax. Everything was really delicious and the standout for me was the sticky rice with young coconut, it is so deliciously sweet and coconutty. Alvo's favourite was the tom yum soup and I am sure it will become a regular on the menu back home. Full as a butchers dog we were dropped back at our hotel to lay around and hopefully digest. Just as I had finished a well earned shower Mum came online and skype worked for us, it was so great to chat to her and to see Gran as I am always suspicious that if Gran got sick or anything that Mum wouldn't tell me....this way I have proof she is ploughing on strong. We watched a couple of episodes of Wonderland and then headed out to meet up with our pommy mates to bid them farewell as they are leaving Chiang Mai tomorrow for new adventures further north. It was getting late and after exchanging blog addresses with the poms we headed off for a snack and a bevvie, we went further into our little laneway again and sat for some delicious local food. Fried tofu with garlic (yep, tiny little whole fried garlic cloves), rice soup and a couple of wine coolers took our fancy and cost all of about $7 all up..... we love this place but I really do have to lay off the food a little. Ok, time to hop on the train bound for morning town as the Seekers would say as there is lots of new adventures to be had tomorrow. Tanya xxx.