After Sukothai, the group braved another long bus ride to Chiang Mai, the largest and most culturally significant city in Northern Thailand. There are so many activity options here that the bus stayed two nights here. My first chosen activity was a Thai Cooking Class!
Anna, Vicky, Chris and I enrolled in a night class at "Smart Cook Thai Cookery School". We got to pick which appetizer, curry, main dish, and dessert we wanted to make.
But first, our teacher, Nee, took us to the local market and taught us a bit about some of the ingredients. Here below she's lecturing us on the different heats of peppers. Yum!
Here's our class, hard at work doing the prep work for our Thai meals.
Chef Linz, using the big sharp knife!
And the fun mortar and pestle!
And then slaving over the stove!
And.. my final creations!
*drumroll please!*
Papaya salad....
Penang Curry...
Fried basil chicken...
And last, but definitely not least---
Mango Sticky Rice!
Everything was AMAZING! I must say that Mango Sticky Rice has to be the most amazing dessert in the history of desserts. I could eat it everyday. I even ate it for breakfast one day on the trip! Deliciousness.
After our night of Thai cookery, we received official diplomas (add that one to the resume!) and a recipe book so we could repeat everything at home. Fun!
The next day was one of the best of the trip- I spent the day learning how to be a 'mahout', aka a Thai elephant trainer!
We were picked up at our hotel and a van drove us to "Jumbo Elephant Camp".
For the real experience (and so our own clothes didn't get disgustingly dirty/smelly), we got fun mahout outfits, and a bag full of elephant snacks (bananas and pineapple!).
First, our teacher taught us all about the elephants at the camp. Most of them were around 40 years old. The lighter the skin, the older they are.
Our first introduction was just offering them some snacks. It's important to feed them front the front, as their peripheral vision is bad.
Next, they came out from behind their fence, and things started getting up close and personal ;)
Smooch! Big fat elephant kisses!
Next up we learned the commands on how to control this big boys (or shall I say, girls!)
'how' ---> stop
'bai' ---> go forward
'ben' ---> turn (while kneeing them in the ear of which direction)
'bone' ---> use your trunk to pick something up
'song' ---> kneel down, I'm getting on!
Sooo... here we go!
SONG!
(It wasn't easy climbing up!)
BAI!
BONE!
And probably the most fun part was getting down by sliding down her trunk!
Whee!
What an awesome morning! The staff at the camp cooked us a delicious Thai lunch, and then we went for a longer ride that afternoon.
Here are tourmates Chris and Vicky having a blast. Woo, bareback riding!
Here is Jana and myself, enjoying a little jungle ride. (Jana was not so sure of the whole thing early on ;) )
Did you know elephants eat about 200 kg (that's 440 lbs) of food a DAY? Of course Mika (our elephant) got a little hungry on our trek, and stopped for a bamboo snack.
This photo makes Mika look so tall!
Look ma, no hands!
Since elephant training isn't all fun and games, we had to do some work too--- aka bathing the elephants!
They loved it! I'm sure the cool river water felt great on their super dry skin.
On the way home after an AWESOME day, we stopped at a neighbouring elephant camp to see a newborn elephant baby! This little munchin was only TWO DAYS OLD!
Total cuteness!
As if the day couldn't get any better, that night, a bunch of our group went to a Muay Thai boxing Match!
Here was the list of fights on for the night.
The not-so-cool part of the night were the first couple fights, which were small children. Ugh, not easy to watch. These kids were quite tough, though! One must remember the culture difference, as Thai parents and family were proud of their kids in the ring, just as Western parents would be proud of their child at a dance recital or a soccer game.
Lady Fighters! They were tough as nails, too.
And the best part of the night was the Main Event--- USA vs Thailand!
I was so pumped to cheer for my country! (The guy on the left is the American). And he won, in 3 rounds! I went up to him after the match to say congrats. We got talking.... he was from Jersey! Small world.
Here I am with two of the Thai fighters of the night.
Did I mention our seats were ringside? Awesome.
The next day the tourbus was leaving around noon. I had the option of sleeping in. No thanks, I wanted to learn how to be a Muay Thai Boxer!
I booked two hours of training with a local coach. His name was Ploykheaw. He was 50 years old. He fitted me up with some fancy boxing shorts, taped up my toes, and rubbed me down with minty smelling Boxing Liniment Oil, which heated up, just like Icy Hot.
Onto to training!
Onto to training!
*Insert "Eye of the Tiger" theme music here*
He worked me tough! I learned the proper way to punch, elbow, block, knee, and kick, along with the resting stance. I was sweating bullets (80 degrees outside, no a/c inside) and sucked down about two liters of water in two hrs. Every so often, he massaged me with ice water (SO NICE!) then it was back to the training. We had several good sparring fests, too.
My teacher was very impressed at how strong I was, and that I was single. He wanted to come back to America with me so he could train me and we could make "big money". HA!
A quick pose with coach before calling it a day.
I was sore for DAYS! Thank goodness that Thai Massage parlors are on basically every corner, with an hour Thai full body massage costing about 5 US dollars!
So, that wraps up my awesome time in Chiang Mai. Thanks for reading!
