so much incredibly delicious thai food

it's been a few days... i got back to korea, and instantly got super busy. with getting back in the routine of waking up to an alarm, teaching classes, and having a set schedule for most of the time. i believe there is only two more blogs left of my trip to thailand... this one about the food/amazing cooking class. and then phuket. sooooo... thai food and a cooking class. 

saturday night after the thai boxing, steph and i went to a restaurant to get a beer to bring in my birthday. 24th birthday in thailand... awesome! we signed up for a cooking class that our hostel lady, Nine, insist that we do. she said it was the best cooking class out of all of them, so we did it. TOTALLY WORTH IT! so sunday we woke up early, got ready and were downstairs waiting for our ride. 


when our ride arrived, we met lucia, who we spent the day cooking with. she was from argentina, had been working in new zealand and was on vacation with her boyfriend. our first stop was the open market. our two awesome teachers, pot and siam, showed us around for a bit, quizzed us on some of the vegetable we would later be cooking with and let us explore for 10 minutes on our own. the color was so overwhelming. all the fresh fruits and vegetable everywhere. 

fresh veggies at the market

cutting fresh mushrooms

cutting fresh mushrooms

from there, we were taken to Siam Rice Thai Cookery School, which we later learned was actually the home of Pot and Nancy, the owners and cooks of the school. they run the school out of their own home. it was awesome. the three of us were seated at the table, given a brochure and told we were picking our own menus. since we chose the full day, we would be making a total of 7 courses; including a soup, a pasta dish, 2 appetizers, stir fried vegetables, our own curry paste which we would use to make curry and a dessert. we could each choose our own. so i choose the following: 
- Pad Thai
- Chicken and Coconut Soup
- Spring Rolls
- Papaya Salad
- Chicken with Cashew Nuts and Fried Vegetables
- Massaman Curry (with the curry paste we each made from scratch) 
- Sticky Rice with Mango
(In the pamphlet about the class, it says "DO NOT EAT BREAKFAST!" so so so true. there was so much food and so many leftovers. 




after that we went straight outside to the kitchen area and got down to business. first lesson we learned, "move your body" in everything we did, weather cutting, frying, stirring... anything, you had to move your body. we first were introduced to Nancy, who is absolutely amazing. she has so much passion for cooking and she loves to share it with other. her personality is hilarious and working with her didn't feel like a class, but like she was a friend showing us how to cook. we all felt so incredibly comfortable being there. it was great. 

first we made the pasta dish and soup. pretty easy. i chose to make pad thai and chicken and coconut soup. they were both pretty easy to make and were wonderful. after finishing those, we moved the finished food into the dining area and came back to make the spring rolls and papaya salad. we all chose to make these two appetizers. they were delicious. and while making the spring rolls we learned out to properly fold/roll the spring rolls. after those were done, we moved them into the dining area and were told we could eat. first round of food was delicious. thankfully we were allowed to have leftovers. they boxed and packaged all of our leftovers up so we could take them home. 

chicken coconut soup

my soup and pad thai

yay for awesome friends and cooking class!

papaya salad and spring rolls

 after this, we were told we had a bit of a break. so we made our way to the covered gazebo area and relaxed. stephanie, lucia and i were talking about all sorts of things, including our ages. lucia asked me my age and i told her that today was actually my birthday and i was turning 24. nancy overheard me say this and said, "It's your birthday? Happy Birthday! Why didn't you tell us earlier that it was your birthday?" i didn't think it was important, so i didn't mention it. after our break, nancy came over with a plate of carrots and potatoes and told us we were going to learn how to carve vegetables into flowers. (while we were doing this, the second half of our group showed up. they were just taking the afternoon class). 

after 3 different attempts, my final product

i bet you can guess which one was done by the professional?

 vegetable carving.... yah that went over terribly. we carved the carrots into flowers and the potato slices into leaves for our flowers. it went over so terribly that i had to start over not once, not twice, but THREE times! it was terrible. terrible terrible terrible.


after the other part of our group finished their first part of cooking and vegetable carving, we moved back to the kitchen area and started with the fried vegetables. i chose the chicken with cashew nuts and fried vegetables. this was exciting because we got to use the wok and basically create fire. it was awesome. below is a video! again, nancy made everything so easy and it turned out great. after putting it in the dining area, we moved onto the curry paste. 

oh curry paste... you are such hard work to make. after putting all of the ingredients in the giant mortar, we took the giant pestle and went to town on pounding the ingredients into a paste. pound pound pound on and on. while we were doing this nancy told us in thailand, a way to tell if someone is going to make a good wife or husband is if they can make good curry paste. sooooo.... i was the first one to finish and as nancy was scooping out my paste into the bowl, she smiles at me and says, "You will make an excellent wife. good curry paste." and then proceeds to say, "i have a son. he is young, will you wait for him?" i laugh. just about that time a small child runs through and she points to him, "that's my son. he is 2. will you wait for him?" that became the joke for the rest of the day. 

curry paste before...

curry paste after...

vegetables and massaman curry

such good curry

 after the curry paste, we moved right into making our curry. i chose the massaman curry, because it wasn't too spicy and was a little sweet with the cinnamon in it. excellent. after we moved the curry into the dining area we went back to making dessert. 


mango and sticky rice is very high up on my list of favorite desserts of alllllllll time! sooooo good. we didn't make the sticky rice, it was already prepared, because one of the steps is letting it steam for 6 hours. so after the rice was prepared we put it in the pot with coconut milk and a little palm sugar. after we were finished, we went into the dining room and started eating again. so much food. 


as we were winding down, they brought out our cooked desserts. so so so good. while we were all talking and saying how we were all full, i heard the workers say my name and talking in thai. 

remember how i nancy overheard me talking about my birthday... well they went out and bought a small birthday cake for me. they put candles on the cake and everyone sang happy birthday for me! :) it was so incredibly sweet. 

happy 24th birthday to me!

we were each given a recipe book of all the recipes we cooked and they included the ones we didn't choose as well. we were also given a certificate of completion for the class! after we ate some cake, we packed up our very large amount of leftovers, said our thank you's and were driven back to our hostel. it was the greatest birthday i could have asked for in thailand! (at night we went to the night market and went shopping for gifts and things for ourselves. so much good stuff! ) 


i know i have said this about a lot of things, but if you ever get the chance to go to chiang mai, first you should stay at The Green Tulip House and you should definitely take this cooking class. it was amazing and totally worth it!

Chiang Dao Nest Trek Experience

When we started planning this entire trip to Thailand, there were originally going to be 3 of us, but because of extenuating circumstances, it ended up just being stephanie and myself on the trip. Our friend clara had found a website for a company who did treks up in the Northern part of Thailand. We decided as a group to go on a 3 day/2 night trek, where we would be hiking a lot, staying in 2 different local villages, seeing beautiful mountains and so much GREEEEEEEN! 

We booked our trek through The Chiang Dao Nest which is a small resort area in the Chiang Dao region of Northern Thailand that also provides tours and trekking. We chose a 3 day/2 night trek, in which we we would enjoy the following:

- Experience life in hill tribe villages
- Visit a number of different ethnic groups
- Nice Elephant ride
- Peaceful bamboo rafting
- Enjoy great hospitality
- Stunning mountain views
- Explore two remote caves
- Nature walks
- Demanding Trekking
- Visit a beautiful waterfall
- Clean, comfortable accommodation
- Very few visitors go to the villages we visit on the first two days and sleep in overnight both nights. 


Wednesday morning, Stephanie and I were picked up from our hostel in Chiang Mai and taken to the Chiang Dao Nest. It was about a 45 minute car ride in the back of a "mini bus", which is basically a truck with a covered area on the back. Once at the Nest, we were given breakfast. Thankfully they had a spare backpack lying around, because neither Stephanie or I had one. We packed our backpack and headed out in the back of another pick-up towards the beginning of our trek. 

our before picture... we didn't bother taking an after.

stephanie's excited face!

a bit of the greenery we saw the whole trip.

 We started out at the top of a very steep and muddy road that led to a Lisu village. Our tour guide, Nata, guided us down the hill and through the small village; which is actually his village. We went through the village and started trekking through the hills and hills of mountain rice. We arrived at the first of the two caves we saw on this trek. We were given hard hats and flashlights and went right in. 

the beginning of the Lisu village. That is Nata, our guide!

A Lisu house

Lisu Village

This cave was pretty cool. Though there were some parts I was hesitant to go through because they were so small, but I braved my claustrophobia and made it to the end of the cave. We did get the pleasure of seeing a few bats along the way as well. 

After the cave, we hiked back to the village, where we ate a pre-packed lunch for us. This is where we tried the Lisu whiskey for the first time. We all know how I feel about whiskey... gross... so again I was hesitant to try it, but made myself do it. It was actually really good. It didn't taste like American whiskey usually tastes. It was pretty good. After finishing lunch, we headed out again, this time to find the waterfall... This is where it got interesting. 

While eating lunch, it started to rain pretty good. Thankfully it slowed before we left, but that left the ground super muddy and slippery. And considering I am the world's biggest klutz, I was worried about injuring myself. (side-note: Mark informed me I had a minimum quota of at least 1 injury, but of course I was going to go over. After that I made it my goal not to injure myself as much as possible.) We made it to the waterfall in one piece, just covered in mud. We played in the waterfall for a while and then headed toward the other Lisu village we would be staying at for the night. This is where the injury came in. We were crossing a rock wall, my foot slipped on the wet rock and i slid down the wall a little before Nata grabbed me. I sliced my leg pretty good, causing it to scar later on. After slipping in the mud a few times, even causing Nata to go sliding down the hill at one point, we finally arrived at the Lisu village. We were fed delicious dinner, drank a bit more Lisu whiskey and called it a night.   

my *only* injury of the entire 16 day trip. i'm pretty proud of myself.

good good food

Nata, our guide.

 The beginning of the second day started with breakfast with a pretty view. From there, we were given walking sticks and set out for our 11km of hiking from the Lisu village to the Karen village we were staying at the 2nd night. We were led by San, a Lisu man from the village we stayed at. This trek, while it was much longer than the 1st day, involved me falling way less. There were parts that I slipped and overall I only had one big fall. 


From the village, we trekked to another small Lisu village and met the shaman, who blessed our trek. We then trekked for a few hours, until we came to the second cave we were going to explore. This cave was much bigger and more wide open. It did not involve any crawling in small spaces. After the cave, we hiked a little while longer and then came to a stopping point. There was a small covered hut area to sit. Stephanie and I instantly sat down in exhaustion. We watched as San and his son pulled out cooking supplies and made a bushman style lunch right there in the middle of the forest. San's son had cut down some bamboo earlier on the trek. Here he split it open, cleaned it out and those were our serving dishes that we ate out of. Pretty awesome. 

Shaman's House

Exit of the 2nd cave

San making the fire for lunch

Our lunch. Yep we ate out of bamboo!

From there we trekked for a few more hours until we finally arrived at the Karen village. When we arrived, we went into the school that they have and talked with the teacher there and looked as the children were finishing their school day. Afterwards, we went down to our hut we were sleeping in for the night and unpacked. Our hut was located right in the front of the river, which at one point, Stephanie fell into and screamed for me to come quickly save her. Probably one of the funniest parts of the whole trek. We were given dinner and then enjoyed the rest of the night in the hut to ourselves. There was no electricity, so we had to do everything by candles... including trekking to the toilet together in the middle of the night because we didn't want to go alone. 

our sleeping hut for the night

the river we were next to

writing by candle light

We were up and out of the hut bright and early on the 3rd day. We started up a large hill, which was probably 75% going uphill and about 15% going downhill with the rest of the 10% being flat. After close to 2 hours of hiking uphill, we made it to the top of the road, where a pick-up was waiting to take us back to The Chiang Dao Nest resort area. Once we made it back there, we were able to finally take somewhat of a legit shower and able to dispose of some items, including my tennis shoes. Because by this time, they were completely trashed and ruined. 


We then set out to walk through some more villages that weren't in the mountains. We drove for a bit and then we stopped. We were told to get to the first villages we were going to be riding an elephant through the hills. Other than my fear of heights kicking in a little bit, it was awesome. We then walked through a Akha, Lisu, Palong, and Karen village. From there we were driven down to the Ping River. After waiting a little bit, we were given life jackets and led to a very large bamboo raft. For the next 30 minutes or so, we floated down the river on the raft, enjoying the peace and quiet and the view. 

Elephants!!

Atop the elephant

Our view from the elephant ride

i couldn't resist taking a picture of some of the children. they were just so cute.

After the bamboo raft ride down the river was over, we were driven back to The Chiang Dao Nest. We collected our things and made the hour drive back to Chiang Mai. 


Overall this was the greatest experience over our entire trip through Thailand. We were able to experience new cultures that we would otherwise not have seen. The views of the land were gorgeous, even through some of the rain. Our tour guides were amazing! The staff at the Chiang Dao Nest was so helpful. 


If any of you ever get the chance to go to Thailand, make sure you make it to Chiang Mai. And definitely book a trek through The Chiang Dao Nest. You won't regret it!