Chiang Mai Cooking Class Feb 24

Another relaxing day.  Decided I’ll stay here one more night. This is really a city you need several days to get to know.  I’ve started enjoying it. Got up and was productive this morning.  Booked my bus to Chiang Rai for 645am tomorrow, fixed my March work schedule, did a little research, and booked a cooking class for this evening.

After that, I wandered around a bit.  Found a few cute stores.  Then found a local massage place the receptionist at the hostel recommended.  Away from the old city and take a right, you see a little no nothing shop. It’s actually someone’s house in the back.  You wander in and two Thai ladies are laying around on the massage beds, startled when someone walks in (esp a white woman).  I tell them I want a massage and body scrub and they start running around, as if they weren’t expecting to have any work for the day and are caught off guard.  At this time, I realized I wore my shoes while walking into the house.  Oops.  They take me to a table, covered in plastic and separated by by folding doors/walls.  Meanwhile, they’re running around to prepare stuff.  I won’t go into specifics publicly, but it was an interesting experience. Like receiving a full body wash from your grandma.  After a 45 min scrub session with some yellow paste she kept mixing with water, she literally took me to their personal bathroom so I could shower off before starting the Thai oil massage.  Took forever to get the stuff off and I’m pretty sure it tinted my skin a little.

After that, I found a hair salon in someones house and had my hair blown dry for 100baht.  

Super sketchy lol

Place I had my hair done.  Poor lady was like "arm getting tired" haha it only took her 20 minutes though

LOVE having my hair straight

Made it back to the hostel just in time for my ride to the cooking class.  The food was so good!  Can't wait to try these recipes at home!

They took us to a local market and explained all of the ingredients and then we rode back to the chef's house where we did the cooking.

Market

Ingredients all set up

Cooking stations

Making cashew chicken

Making Tom Yum with prawns 

My Tom Yum!

Making spring rolls

Frying spring rolls

This is how they make the sticky rice

In this hat thing and inside a bag to steam

Mashing herbs for our main dish, Koa Soi

I put too many of the crunchy things on top but the flavour was good

Final dish, Mango Sticky rice!

After dinner, home to bed and early bus in the morning!