Nick - Chiang Mia how fun!

Yet again the overnight train proved to be useless. I couldn't sleep a wink but at least I was comfortable. There was a dramatic change in landscape from flat, dry, and hot to hilly, cool, and forested. It reminded me of northern La Union. Chiang Mai is a very quaint and quiet little town. I am staying in the backpacker district which is aptly named because it is soooo cheap here (at least 1/2 to 1/4 the price of Bangkok). There are very few travelers here which has driven the prices down. Yesterday was a relaxing day (in part because I horrifically jammed my already broken big toe setting out to explore). But the next few days should prove to be fun. Today i'm taking a Thai cooking class and tomorrow I am off to white water raft/ride elephants/mountain bike, then the following day I either will play with tigers or zipline through the jungle's canopy. It does suck doing all of it alone (Mateo.......) and I won't have photos to share until I return so you will just have to read. Also last night's soccer match between USA and England made me realize that we suck at soccer as a country. But thank God for English goalkeepers and their notorious rep for choking at the world cup!

Later that day…

So today I went in for my Thai cooking class at The Best Thai Cookery School. I was picked up by my instructor a cute little Thai woman named Boom. She was unbelievably sarcastic which made the whole experience a blast. There wer only 4 other people in my class which made it all the better because we didn’t have to compete to take photos or ask questions or any of that. I was able to pick 7 dishes from 14 to learn (it could have been more if I had a travel buddy), so I picked chicken in coconut milk soup, chicken with cashew nut, green curry with shrimp, Pad Thai, papaya salad, spring rolls in plum sauce, and sticky rice with mango. Our first stop was the market to buy fresh veggies and learn about strange new foods. I was the class guinea pig because, let’s face it, I’ll eat anything. I sampled fermented duck eggs, the hottest chili pepper in all of Thailand, fetus eggs (won’t tell you what that is.), snake, and many strange fruits (including one called Jasmine which smells like a dead corpse but tastes sweet [in fact it smells so bad few hotels allow it]). She was impressed with my knowledge of foods and preparation (props to Mom for all of the Baby Bok Choy, Chinese eggplant, and lemon grass). Once we bought all of the ingredients we set off toward the cooking school. We arrive at this off-the-beaten-track school where we have our own cooking stations and aprons. Boom starts off by showing us the secret to cooking Jasmine Rice which was.. sorry you’re going to have to fly all the way to Thailand to learn that one… Then we started on the soups, which were comprised of simple yet rare ingredients and after we completed the soup I sampled mine and nearly fell over it tasted so amazing. Boom is a very odd teacher; one minute she is giving you praise then the next she is slapping your hand as if to say “bad dog, no touch!”. I can tell that the others in the class have never cooked for themselves (lighting a high gas stove with their face directly over it, cutting their fingers while dicing the onions, etc..). Boom was also impressed with my uncanny ability to be unmoved by spicy food so she kept dumping peppers, and hot spices into my dishes and smirking at me, but each time I ate without a hint of displeasure and every time she asked me “why you no live in Thailand” to which I replied “I don’t know, Nick no talk Thai?”. All of the other dishes were mindbogglingly delicious. Our kitchen was soon saturated with intense smells and light banter. I chatted with my fellow chefs and learn two were from Israel and two from England (to which I gave much thanks for their goalie in last night’s game). One of the Israeli girls was Kosher which sort of threw Boom for a loop. This chick had brought all of her own cookware! For the grand finale Boom showed us how to fire sear our stir fry. Now she gave us the demonstration first the new were supposed to follow if we wanted. Her demonstration went like this: she super heat a wok of oil threw in garlic with its peel on (“so peel burn no garlic inside burn”), she tilted her wok slightly away from herself and said “very easy, very danger, same same” and proceeded to add chicken with water which acted as a catalyst for an immense fireball that erupted from her wok sending a Mt. St. Helens-like heat wave hurtling towards us. After the smoke cleared and over turned chairs from the scared onlookers were righted, there stood Boom behind a wok filled with the most mouthwatering stir fry know to man with a huge grin saying “you see now, very easy”. There were only two souls brave enough to attempt such a mortal cooking technique, myself and one of the British girls. We took our positions behind our woks and after some brief instructions from Boom we were ready (I of course was a sweaty mess at the thought of my body hair + hot oil = extremely flammable). With a quick flick of the wrist we had two fireballs of our own which were tempered only by the roaring applause and whooping of our classmates. At the end of the class we all sat together and toasted over our prepared food to a job well done. Boom gave each of us a cook book and a certificate and we snapped a few photos and said farewell. I hope my pictures come out! Tomorrow is white water rafting, elephant riding, and biking! See you soon!