We started our day at Smart Cook Thai Cookery School with a trip to the local market, where our instructor explained each of the ingredients we used throughout the day.
Here our guide identified various types of onion, mushroom, eggplant, basil, etc.
Katie and I filled our baskets with delicious smelly herbs.
Katie, me, and our new Aussie friends (2 from Sydney with a Brisbane hippy in between) in front of the cooking school with our fresh ingredients for cooking.
We enjoyed hot tea and water before slaving away in the kitchen all day. This is also where we enjoyed the fruit of our labor (six courses back to back). We should have skipped breakfast.
These were our preparation stations, where we chopped and sorted ingredients for cooking.
Katie pummels the green curry paste. There's a reason they sell curry paste pre-made at the grocery store. It's a pain to make it yourself, though it could be a good anger release.
We each had our own cooking station as well which varied between pots, pans, and woks based on what we were making.
Now for a look at my beautiful creations...
1. Hot & Sour Soup
2. Pad Thai
3. Spicy Glass Noodle Salad
4. Phanaeng Curry (a peanut-based curry; others made green, red and yellow curry and we all sampled each others)
5. Chicken with cashew nuts stirfry - my new obsession - yum!
6. Sweet sticky rice with mangoes
After cooking school and a nap, we walked toward the Old City protected by this brick wall and moat.
We entered by the Chiang Mai Gate which was a simple brick entrance - this gate is prettier.
Then we were in for wats galore. We saw the Wat Jet Rin, Wat Chedi Luang, Wat Pundtow, and Wat Phra Singh. Don't ask me which was which. They all blur together!
Buddhas everywhere.
And monks as well, all in these orange ensembles.
I particularly liked the colors on the roof of this wat.
Many monks bowed in worship in this wat.
The Sunday Market was in full swing along Ratchadamnoen Rd despite intermittant rain. The vendors would throw plastic sheets over their items, sometimes laying directly on the ground, in an attempt to keep everything dry.
The market had a nice backdrop of wats and mountains - what a rough place to shop.
We walked back towards our hotel with a stop at an internet cafe, and along Loi Kroh Rd lined with bars. It was surprising and disheartening to see bar after bar with prositutes lined up on stools in front of each bar looking for their next customer. There were plenty of creepy old white men paired up with beautiful young Thai girls. It was really difficult to find a 'normal' bar with a mixed crowd of similar aged men and women. We did not succeed our first night, but in our attempt, we stumbled across a Thai Kickboxing ring in the middle of a large complex of bars. We watched about 7 rounds of brutal blows.
Another action shot in the kickboxing ring. We then went in search of a late dinner at the Night Bazaar and stumbled upon a new favorite treat - banana roti covered in condensed milk - yum!
