A flavour of Thailand

Leaving the madness of Bangkok behind, we arrived in Chiang Mai after a short 50 minute flight. Our base for the next three nights was a beautiful little guest house in the middle of the old walled city. It is perfectly located, walking distance to everywhere and directly opposite a stunning Wat (temple).

A totally different atmosphere here than Bangkok, Chiang Mai is far more calm and relaxed. But on Sunday night the peaceful streets surrounding the guest house burst into life for the weekly night market. The noise and atmosphere was incredible, with only a 30 second break for the national anthem when the street froze and everyone stood to attention.

As well as clothes, jewelery and handicrafts, there were hundreds of food stalls selling everything imaginable. Including various deep-fried insects! I couldn't help myself and managed to blag a free Cricket off one of the vendors...Yum! A bit chewy, salty with a crunchy head! Nikky was not impressed. We also ate some proper food and ended up having dinner in the market for 40 pence each! (80 if you include the beer!)

Inspired by the local dishes, we enrolled in a one-day Thai cookery course in an organic farm outside the city. It took an hour to get there, driving through paddy fields and shanty towns. On the way we stopped at a local food market where we were shown what the ingredients are and how to buy them. The market was a bit different from the nice, clean Covered Market in Oxford!

We were shown around the farm when we arrived, tasting all the different herbs and seeing how it all works before getting stuck in with the cooking. We selected 6 dishes each to cook and our teacher was a tiny little Thai man who was slightly nuts but great fun! We are looking forward to replicating our dishes when we get home! (And yes...Nikky cooked!)





Tonight will probably end up going back to a really fancy bar, where we enjoyed cocktails, beers and two courses for less than a tenner! Not that we can eat any more after feasting on our home-cooked dishes!

We would love to stay longer in Chiang Mai and maybe explore the area a bit more, but we are heading down south to Phuket tomorrow for a week of chilling out on beaches. Sounds pretty good too!