Chiangmai

Learning how to cook my favourite dishes

The blogs have been a bit sparse recently because we have been stuck in Pai, having the time of our lives. We intended to stay here 2 days but its ended up being 6. But before I write about Pai, I need to catch up on Chiang Mai. After Kanchanaburi, we took a bus to Auyttya, or something like that, which is a cultural place, best known for having a Buddha's head in a tree.

Buddha in a tree

We went there just for a few hours whilst we waited for our night train to Chiang Mai. I didn't really think much of Ayutthya: after we had looked around the ruins and the Buddha in a tree, there wasn't much else to do and it was a bit more costly than Kanchanaburi, but we had to kill several hours waiting there as our night train wasn't until 9pm. We did this by having a meal and walking around the markets, and then it started to rain heavily, so we ran back to the tourist agency where we had left our bags and took cover. During this run in the dark, I tripped on a piece of metal and cut open my toe at the nail. I had to sit in the tourist place for a while dabbing away the blood and putting on a plaster. The rain was very heavy, and we caught a tuk tuk to the train station, getting quite wet in the process. Once at the train station, we waited an hour for our night train to come, and to our delight, it came on time!! (Only a 15 minute delay! :o). This night train was a lot better than the other one we had taken to Bangkok: we were in our own little cubicle with another woman, and Jemma was on the top bunk and I was on the bottom. It wasn't too bad at all. The next day, we got to Chiang Mai around 11 in the morning and took a taxi to Litlle Bird hostel - a hostel that had been recommended to us by numerous people around the world, including one boy in South America who absolutely raved about it. Chiang Mai is really cheap for accommodation, so we didn't really need to go in a dorm, but as this place had had such good reviews, we thought we'd check it out anyway.

Food is so cheap here, I am indulging every day

We paid £2 each for a bed in a 4 bed dorm, and we got what we paid for. I absolutely hated it. It was boiling hot, with just a small, rotating fan to keep the whole room cool, ants everywhere and a filthy en suite with a shower over the toilet that you had to flush with a bucket. Luckily, our room mates were lovely (two young girls from the USA) and we got on really well with them. They had been studying in Chiang Mai for the past 6 months and offered to take us out to the weekly night markets and show us around. We went round the night markets with them and had food and then when we came back that night, we stayed awake talking until 3am! After that, I didn't really sleep well anyway because of the intense heat and the next day me and Jemma decided to check out and treat ourselves to a £7 hotel around the corner. For that, we got a hotel room, with air con, satellite TV, a really nice bathroom, a fridge with free water and big comfy beds - it was bliss. The next day, we didn't do much, because we loved the room so much and spent most of the day catching up on sleep from the 2 previous nights and watching TV. In the evening, we met up with Tony, our friend from China, who has been doing a similar route to us and who we have met at various places. We were sad to hear that he was cutting his trip short and going home early because he had caught Dengue fever and had had to be in hospital in Chiang Mai for a few days.

Our teacher showing us around the food garden

The following day we were more productive and did a cookery course which was excellent. we cooked 6 Thai dishes which were all delicious and by the end of it we were so stuffed. The cookery school was in the Countryside and they had their own vegetable garden and it was all very tranquil. At the beginning of the day, the guide took us around the morning market to show us what ingredients we'd be using and at the end of the class we all got a cook book. That pretty much sums up Chiang Mai. We didn't do much there other than cook because we are going back there after Pai and are deliberating over whether to do a trek but probably wont.

More photos of Chiangmai in my facebook album, but for now I am off for an oil massage, got to make the most of cheap massages.

Chiangmai photos