ANA AND ANDY, CHIANG MAI, THAILAND. 27th APRIL 2014.

We arrived into Chiang Mai bus station and jumped into a Songthaew (shared taxi) along with other tourists heading for their guesthouses. Got dropped off right across the road (after a discussion about us being in the wrong place - we weren't!) and we were welcomed into Baan Songjum guesthouse by the owner, Parichart. An older lady, she and her son (Pen) run this place with giant smiles and are very relaxed and happy to chat away to you and give advice about things to do locally. They also have 2 lovely dogs, Lana and Frank. Frank is afraid of everyone and everything whereas Lana is very social (bit like us)!

Baan Songjum has a kitchen for guests to use. We cooked for the first time in ages. I need to get back into practice - even my scrambled eggs were a bit disappointing! 

The first recommendation was the local market (another one!) so out we went and crossed the 'Ping' river and into main city complex inside the old square walls. We had turned up on 'walking street market' day, as the name would suggest the streets inside the old city were closed to traffic and a massive market was set up crammed with people, locals and tourists alike enjoying themselves listening to music, eating and just generally being entertained and socialising.

The food parts of the market were scattered throughout the streets filling up wat courtyards and parking spaces almost like food courts in a huge shopping mall just all under the hot and humid sky. Seafood omelette thing for me and pad thai omlette for Ana, all for very little moolah. We headed back out into the handicrafts and buskers and spied dessert. A guy making doughnut-y type things with fillings in the shape of fish which he then stuck on a lollipop stick, watching him make them was fun so we had a couple to try them out - and very good they were too! It is a crazy, huge place and gets a little overwhelming and tiring after a few hours so we headed back to the guesthouse.

Walking street market - this shot doesn't really do it justice, the place is heaving!

The food here is local and great! Squid fresh from the BBQ, hmmm..

More foody goodness...

Finally - I have picked. It was a seafood omelette type affair - very tasty.

Ana's local treat. Pad  Thai with egg and a garnish of spring onion

This guy specialises in quails eggs and thats it, he is getting through thousands of them!

Some pretty good street artists. There were also a couple of slightly dodgey ones too - I assume they were cheaper!

This chappy is just playing wine glasses - he was pretty good too.

Ana with dessert - a blueberry filled fresh baked fish (well, fish shaped doughnut that is)

Does anyone know what these fruit are? We don't!

Me having a bash with the air pistols. Do you feel lucky punk?

Not too bad, 'made my day'!

Ana had been looking at a Thai cooking class in Chiang Mai and so the next morning we were picked up from our guest house by Ning one of the employees of 'Thai farm cooking' along with a gang of others.

First stop for us all was the market where we were introduced the the basic main ingredients of Thai cooking and taught a little more about the ingredients and where they come from. Then came the fun crescendo when it was discovered that 2 of the people in our group had been picked up by the wrong cooking class company. There followed a lot of funny (if you were not directly involved) confusion and explanations and basically it looked as though both the company and the couple were at fault so we hung around whilst they were driven back to their hotel and exchanged for the correct couple, this gave us time to explore the market in a more leisurely way and chill out with a nice iced coffee for a while.

Thai food is very simple, just a few main ingredients apparently.....

This exotic cuisine is quite common in Asia and around the world. Called rice apparently. I'm learning...

The market stalls were pretty awesome with a fairly overwhelming selection.

More foody goodness, We weren't brave enough to venture into the meat area - it's actually a sealed room - it reeks.

Next we were trucked to the cooking school itself. A series of quite large natural huts on a farm where a lot of the ingredients used are grown onsite.

The cooking school was set in a lovely small farm and some beautiful gardens with lotus ponds.

Lotus flowers

And the pod. You can eat the seeds from the pod - we did in Cambodia but they didn't taste of much.

We had a quick tour around the gardens and were shown some of the ingredients we were using that day and a taste of some of the herbs, spices and fruits that were growing locally.  We had 8 in our group and were a mix of brits, americans, italian and Malay, all in all a good group. This is where the photos start to go a little Old El Paso, don't laugh - the hats were needed for the sun!

Ana auditioning for a role as the Thai 'Uncle Ben'

Ana demonstrating the rice washing technique. Not too much though, thats the sticky rice, it needs the starch.

Intense concentration!

Our Thai cuisine was made with only the freshest, hand picked ingredients. Harvested by local experts - like me...

...And Ana, look there's a bean she has just harvested and handily stored away, may need another one or two though!

I honestly do not remember this photo being taken - For those of you who know El Greco. This is what he looks like on his day's off!

Into the classroom where we made 6 different dishes each (we had pre-selected our 6 choices) and Ning ran through how to prepare everything from scratch including the pounding of spices and chillies to make the green/yellow and red curry pastes for the famous Thai curries. This is very hard work in a hot kitchen! We worked through all of our dishes and prepared some truly amazing food.

A Thai green curry paste is just this...

Oh, and this.....

Don't forget about 30 mins of this!

Ta Da!

Found this little chap in the sink just as I poured some washing up in there - fortunately he escaped unharmed

Half way through the day we stopped for lunch which we had just cooked!  We could eat as much as we'd like but there were still 2 more dishes to prepare after lunch which Ning said would be our dinner for the evening!  She was right, at the end of the day we all took home a doggie bag which fed us for a meal again later.

Ana was pleased to finally lose the hat!

I think a little more lemon in the Tom Yam. Perfect!

All the best chefs taste as they go along, they don't tend to eat a bowlful....:)

Coconut soup - Ana's tasty starter

Thai Green Curry. Does what it says on the tin. This one is Falang (foreigner) spicy. Only 5 chillies!

Ning doin' her thing

Stir fry with a smile - Chicken Cashew nuts minus 2 minutes..

Ana taking a breather and cooling down by her own personal fan!

Between us we made:

Thai Green Curry
Thai Red Curry
Tom Yam Soup
Coconut Soup
Chicken Cashew Nut
Pad Thai
Spring Rolls
Mango Sticky Rice
Bananas in Coconut Cream

And a lot of mess that was cleared up after us by the staff at the kitchen, thank you guys!

Thai red curry and chicken cashew nut stir fry

Green Curry, Chicken Cashew Nuts with Rice and mango sticky rice.

Fresh steamed spring rolls.

Leftovers for dinner!

So the CDWM crew back home - get ready for a Thai extravaganza!

When we got back to the guesthouse we headed out to check out some of the local wats - there are a lot and a number of them are supposed to be spectacular. I have to admit though that after a long hot day neither of us were really into it and ended up grabbing a cold drink and heading back for a well earned rest!

Wat, no more temple puns?

Stup-endous statue (I'll start on the Stupa puns instead then ;) to stop me, send cash)

Is it a snake? Is it a dragon? Who cares, lets scarper because the rabid dogs guarding this temple are much scarier and have started growling at Ana. 

The following day were were heading up Doi Suthep hill to a hilltop temple. This was a definite scooter requirement so we hired a lovely machine for the day and I had great fun climbing the steep twisty road that weaved up the steep thickly forested hillside on the moped, it was a great feeling being out and about under our own steam. I think Ana may not have had as much fun during the bike ride as me however...

The temple was great to see and we had a bit of an explore further up the hill where the road got very twisty, bumpy and narrow before we turned back for the entertaining ride all the way down! Think Ana may have had her eyes closed all the way!

So there are over 300 of these to climb...best start at the beginning then

Photo stop

Gong...

Only another 200 steps to go, think of the Rocky theme tune and you'd be wrong :)

Elaborate naga

Scary statue, unknown woman am guessing she's a local

Temple at the top and unknown woman number 2

We were greeted by these dancing queens

The bells ...

Worth the climb for the temple and...

the view

These guys look lost, although if they'd just look to their right they would see the temple! Tourists...

A copy of the emerald buddha of which we will see later on in Bangkok, so it's just this imitation one for now

Supa-stupa

Born to be wild, 125cc wild

Towards the top of the twisty hill that we scootered our way up

Rest break for the driver

That evening we checked out the local touristy venue for Muay Thai Kickboxing. A local tradition and very popular here. This being a touristy event the evening started out very gently with a couple of fighters in the ring miming kickboxing moves and playing out a fight. This was OK but reminded me a little of WWF when I was a kid - pretty poor play acting!  Ana here - My brothers (Scott and Matt) would watch WWF for hours so although I didn't choose to watch WWF I was also aware of the novelty, although they didn't pull out any fold away chairs.

Then it was on to the junior leagues where we got to see 12 year olds beating each other up - this was a little uncomfortable too but I suppose no worse than kids at home boxing when they are younger.

There was a woman's international fight and the visiting Singaporean lady truly outclassed the local Thai fighter and the fight was finished pretty early.

After these fights there was a short break and then an 'entertainment' event, this consists of 4 fighters being blindfolded and let loose in the ring with a referee where they were punching and kicking each other with no idea of where they were. The referee also got a few digs in the back and kicks when he wasn't quick enough to move. Bizarre but, it was quite entertaining.

So this is 4 trained Muay Thai fighters blindfolded. Only 2 are actually managing to fight here, One is about to kick the corner post and the other guy is having a wander!

And now one of the guys is about to be ambushed from behind. Look out! Oh and shortly after the ref intervened, only to get a swift kick for his trouble!

Next up was the big feature fight, 2 grown men this time who were both ripped and the fights were a lot more intense with real hard contact and some wincing moments for the crowd, it was genuinely quite enjoyable to watch. And I enjoyed my freebie watered down scotch and coke - of course I got 2 as Ana doesn't drink!  All fights done -lasted until midnight- and it was time to leave the boxing ring and stroll back for our final nights rest at the guesthouse before moving on again the next day.

Next stop - Sukhothai....