Thailand Day 2: Chiang Mai!

I got up pre-the crack of dawn (which wasn’t much of a challenge thanks to jet lag!) and grabbed a taxi back to the airport. A ton of friends who had visited Thailand recommended visiting a few towns in the mountains up north, so I listened! After a quick 1-ish hour flight, I landed in Chiang Mai. Unfortunately, I arrived at the very tail end of dry season which is when the farmers burn the fields and undergrowth in the forest in preparation for the next growing season. It was pretty hot and the sky was totally hazy with thick smoke. I had heard Chiang Mai and Pai were cool, scenic, chill-out towns, but at the moment Chiang Mai was brown and crispy!

Smoke aside, I dumped my bag, signed up for an evening cooking class, then wandered around town with a Canadian hostel mate who had just arrived. We grabbed a meal (I had an interesting crispy fried pork cutlet thing…), and then parted ways to find a Thai massage J I didn’t have to search long, as they are literally about every 50 meters, and ended up going to a place that trains female prisoners to be masseuses and helps them find job placements upon their release.

I’m sure the Thai massage experience varies depending on the price range, and this one was on the lower end (about $6 for a one-hour whole body massage). First, I was taken back out to the front porch and my feet were washed. Since you take off your shoes before entering homes, businesses and all the shrines, I was doing a lot of walking around barefoot and my feet were pretty icky! After a good washing, I was given some slippers and led to a little changing area. I was handed some loose drawstring pants and a loose top (they sort of resembled medical scrubs in a way) and was “told” to change. There wasn’t any English being spoken, so again this was mostly a pantomimed exchange, but I hoped I was correct in assuming to take off my clothes and bra and out on this nice flowy loose stuff instead.

After changing came the interesting surprise: I was then lead into a large, dark, air conditioned room FULL of wall-to-wall low beds where about 25 other people were in various stages of their own massages. I really had no idea how Thai massages worked, and at first I found being in a room full of strangers getting massaged pretty funny. I was directed to my bed, told to lay down on my back, and my little lady quickly got to work. She was awesome! Thai massage is part massage, part stretching, and part chiropractice. For example, she massaged my feet, legs and hips, but then had me sit up with my legs out stretched and laid on my back while I folded forward, forcing a pretty deep toe-touching hamstring stretch. She cracked and popped anything that would yield, and she almost jumped off the bed giggling when she cracked my neck and shoulders, which admittedly let out a pretty impressive and VERY loud series of pops in the quiet room.

As most massages do, the hour went by all too fast and before I knew it I was being lead back to change. I felt great! After some bowing, a cup of hot tea, and some more bowing in thanks, I was back out in the bright hot afternoon, and headed back to the hostel. I took the long way home, and hit about 7 incredible temples on the way home. Chiang Mai is a historical city, and the main old town resides within a square-walled perimeter, with a gate at each of the cardinal directions. Inside the walled area, which was around one mile per side, was a dense accumulation of temples, museums, hip cafes and bars, and typical Thai food stalls, shops and massage places. I learned along my travels that Chiang Mai had been “discovered” by backpackers decades ago, and was now a favorite of ex-pats and a regular stop for the traveling types, which meant it had all the things cool young people want or need. On top of swanky organic coffee bars and neon-signed sushi bars were a ton of very of shrines, monuments and Thai history.

The "kitchen"

They’re all beautiful, but about 11 giant golden Buddhas per day is my personal limit, so after hitting my quota of history and temples, I went back to my hostel and cleaned up for my cooking class, which my new Canadian friend also joined me for. Thai food is clearly amazing, and a bunch of my friends recommended taking a cooking class, so I was pretty excited!

There were a lot of options, but I opted for the one suggested by my hostel (and as it turned out, one several of my friends had gone to as well), Baan Thai cooking school. Baan means home and Thai means Thai (but it actually translates to “free”), as this school was in an old converted family home of the original owners. They had three outdoor “kitchens,” which were a number of basic stations made up of a single gas burner and wok per student and one long prep table per kitchen.

We were given 4 options for each of 4 courses, and I chose to make a green papaya salad as an appetizer, tom yum soup, pad thai (one of my all-time favorite foods, hands down), and a green curry. After picking our courses, we were lead around the market by our teacher and taught about various Thai food ingredients -- from the produce to the fresh herbs and seasonings to the proteins that would all end up in our dishes.

Huge durian fruits in the market!

I was starving, but thankfully I only grabbed a passion fruit juice at the market, because I had NO IDEA how much food we were about to cook. When we got back to the cooking school we were separated to the three kitchens based on which dishes we chose to make. We started with pad thai, and were each showed to a station then the prep table where the veggies we needed had been mostly prepared and laid out for us. After a bit of chopping, our very boot-camp and militant sounding instructor gave us a full rundown of the steps, and in less than about 4 minutes, she had whipped up some pretty delicious looking pad thai!

After her demo, we were let loose, and she marched back and forth behind our line of woks yelling corrections and instructions as we went. It was unbelievably hot in front of the wok, but I didn’t crack under the heat or pressure and also whipped up something that resembled what I hoped was a tasty dish. As we finished we walked back to our low table and sat on the floor to eat. I couldn’t be bothered to wait for the others or even snap a picture, and I scarfed the whole thing down before some people had even gotten back to the table! It was pretty yummy!!

Dried shrimp :)

For the next round, we prepped and cooked both the soup and the salad. First we combined everything for the soup, gave it a quick boil, and then threw it down on the table with a plate over the top to stay warm as we made the salad. I had never ordered a green papaya salad, but had tried a bite or two here and there….so I was more just curious what went into the dish. We shredded unripe papayas and some huge carrots, squeezed a lot of lime into a mortar and pestle along with fish sauce, chilies, palm sugar, and dried shrimp and ground it all together for the dressing. The dressing got tossed with the papaya, carrots, some tomatoes and green beans, and that was that! I had plowed through the first course so quickly, and made the second round of everything so spicy, that it was slow going through the soup and salad course!

But honestly, the soup was easily the best version of tom yum soup I have ever had – I don’t know if it was the super fresh and authentic ingredients or my sweet new cooking skills, but it tasted way better than any Thai soup I had ever tried before.

Thankfully they let us take a long break after this, and a few of us went and grabbed some beers at the 7-11 (they are on every block, on every corner, like a bad Starbucks joke) to try to extinguish the fires in our mouths with some Changs J I won’t lie: most “local” beers taste exactly the same to me….Chang tastes like Tusker tastes like Cusquena tastes likes Peroni tastes like Bud. They all are the same generic lager to my undiscerning palate, so Thai beers were no more or less offensive than other regional offerings I had tried. Not sure if I should readily admit it, but to me, those beers are all just generic beer flavor.

Tom Yum soup and Green Papaya Salad

Anyway, the beer helped, and after some slow eating and chatting, it was time to make the last curry dish! I was excited to learn, but so full that I had no hope of actually eating it. I had chosen green curry, and was lead to the appropriate kitchen – on this prep table was basically a mountain of green chilies beside a huge mortar and pestle. All 8 of us were handed a large handful of chilies and told to chop them as finely as possible. The only man in our group (there were several overall, but apparently they preferred red curry) was relegated to the mortar, and as we chopped the ingredients got thrown in to be ground up. It was tough work, and after the chilies came Thai ginger and some other spices that the poor guy had to hammer away at for what seemed like forever to get a paste going.

Making curry

Once the ladies were done chopping, we took turns vigorously slamming the spices into submission. Once it resembles a light green paste, we made our own coconut milk! We had been provided with a large cheesecloth bag filled with fresh, shredded coconut. This got dunked into a huge bowl of lukewarm water, which we took turns kneading and squeezing the bag into to extract the milk from the shreds. Once the milk was ready, we took our places at the woks and stir fried everything up along with some chicken and veggies! It smelled so amazing, that even though I was stuffed I was way too excited to taste it.

We returned to the table, were doled out some scoops of jasmine rice, and I finished the whole little bowl before my full tummy had a chance to protest. I regret nothing :P

Yummy chili peppers

All together I was pretty shocked at how complex the flavors of each dish were for how few ingredients went in. The fresh herbs and chilies layered with a little fish and oyster sauce really provided a lot of depth to each course, but all in varying ways. I loved the class, and was glad they gave us a little paperback recipe book to take home with all the typical Thai dishes in it!

I t happened to be Saturday night, and Chiang Mai has huge night markets on Saturday and Sunday evenings. Whole chunks of the city get closed off to traffic and hundreds upon hundreds of vendors and food hawkers set up in the streets.

A bunch of us from the class opted to get dropped off at the market instead of heading home for the night, and we explored the market for a while. We stuck together for a bit, but eventually we all ended up in smaller and smaller factions since every time you stopped to look at a booth, the constantly flowing crowd would sweep away the rest of the crew like a fast-moving river! I lost my friend from the hostel and about a half hour later, found myself “alone” in the crowd. The night market was on the south end of town, and I was staying all the way at the north gate, so after a bit more wandering, I peeled out of the masses and headed towards home. The middle of the city was ridiculously quiet. Compared to the lights and crowds of the market, the whole walk home felt like I was in a deserted ghost town! All I had learned from other travelers so far is how incredibly safe and friendly the majority of Thailand is, so instead of grabbing a tuk tuk, I opted to walk the 20 minutes home, and sort of reveled in the warm night air and the peace and quiet of the temples at night.

I made it home, took a cold shower, and climbed into my bunk! I had a 7am pick up to go meet some elephants, and the jet lag was catching up. I was out immediately and never even heard my roommates stumble in sometime in the wee hours!