Chiang Mai: Authentic Thailand

Norm:

We have arrived at our second leg of our Thailand adventure in Chiang Mai, a city which is significantly different from Bangkok. Rather than massive shopping malls and super concentrated streets, Chiang Mai is much more like the Thailand I had envisioned.

Hotel pool

Small street of our hotel

Chilling out on the balcony

We arrived in the afternoon and after we checked into the hotel, we ate at a restaurant called Aroon Rai. The food there was good, but the Tom Yum soup was super spicy (Mandy says that was the spiciest thing she had ever eaten!). I ate golden Thai curry with rice and Mandy had the Kao Soi. After that, we walked through Loi Kroh road, a main road with a lot of bars, to get to the Night Bazaar. Lots of cool trinkets and souvenirs to get there. In the basement, there were a lot of artists selling photo-realistic paintings; the artists were very talented. After buying a few knick knacks, we walked back home.

Yummy food

The next day, we had signed up for a cooking class where we went to a Thai chef's place named Yui to cook traditional Thai dishes. We cooked the traditional pad thai, penang and green coconut curry, chicken cashew stir fry, tom yum soup, fried spring rolls and mango coconut sticky rice. We ate all our dishes afterwards and by the end of it, we were super full. Rather than talk about the dishes, here are some pictures:

Our stations 

First dish, everything is so clean!

Pad Thai

Hehehe

Green Curry

Red Curry

Which one looks better =P

Tom Yum Soup

Halfway through the cooking class, Yui also took us to visit a local market to introduce us to some of the vegetables and rice that is grown locally. I had a Thai iced tea while Mandy tried the watermelon smoothie. I was also eaten by quite a few mosquitos at the market as well. (Mandy's side note: I got one mosquito bite on my right arm :( It got swollen and emitting heat. At least it wasn't on my leg.)

Retro Van

Held together with a paper clip

Open Market

Local, organic veggies; tiny eggplants!

Fresh noodles!

Iced coffee in a bag

Watermelon juice in a bag

Cashew stir fry

Deep frying is hard, =|

Mango Sticky Rice

The cooking/eating bonanza ended around 5 and we chilled for a bit at the hotel before meeting up with Alison for dinner. It was fun; I hadn't seen Alison for years and it was good to share travel stories with each other. Then it was back home to go get an early night's sleep to see elephants!

Restaurant across from the hotel

Yay, Alison =)