Day 16 & 17: Enough Food For An Entire Army

We were picked up at our hotel by our cooking class instructors. They took us to their facility not too far from our hotel. They picked up other people and immediately started chatting. One was from the UK, one from the US, two from Germany, two from Australia and us. Good mix. It was a full day of cooking 6 dishes. We had choices between the dishes so Chelsea and I picked all different dishes so we could try 12. The group was so open and generous we actually tried every dish. We started the day by going to the food market and picking up what we needed for the days cooking. The market was packed. You don't buy canned coconut milk here - you use a shredding machine add water and soak a bag full of the shredded coconut to massage the milk out. Glad we all washed our hands. The instructor introduced items in the market that we probably won't find in our grocery stores.

When we got back to the class the eating began with a taste of local deserts and fruits. We all sat on the floor which was uncomfortable for tall people like Matt. We made three types of curries including the curry paste which we all mashed using a crucible (I think that is what it's called). It is a tall wooden bowl with a round headed crushing utensil used to mash, crush and pulverize. Matt went Thai spicy on most dishes. The heat was good enough to still taste the food. Other tasty dishes was a spicy papaya d
salad, hot and sour soup, spring rolls and deep fried bananas. All day eating just like the Thai's.

Chelsea was not feeling well so Matt headed for another round at the night bazaar. Shopping more and more. I missed dinner due ti the overload of food.

The next day we started the day with watching boxing at breakfast and ended the day with Thai boxing. The Thai boxing had it's moments both good and bad. There was a three person blind folded match and a midget vs a 10 yr old to fill the space between the real fights. Matt was victorius in choosing the blue corner who were Thai over the red corner which were Burmese. Apparently the two do not like eachother.

We have decided to stay two more nights in chiang Mai as we love it soo much.