Cooking, Trekking, and Sick in Chiang Mai

We ended up spending about 10 days in Chiang Mai. The plan was to head 3 hours north to Pai do do some trekking, but a wee bit of food poisoning changed our plans!

We completed a cooking course at Baan Thai, a highly recommended cooking school in the old part of town. After spending an hour at the market with our instructor, learning all about the different Thai vegetables and fruits, and replacements that could be used back home, we headed back to the school with vegetables in baskets in tow. We each cooked 6 dishes, including a curry paste (red and green) using the mortar and pestle! Matt cooked Phad Thai, Spring Rolls, Red Curry Paste, Chiang Mai Noodle Dish, Tom Kha Gai (coconut soup), and Deep Fried Bananas., and I cooked Cashew Nut Chicken, Spring Rolls, Red Curry Paste, Panang Curry, Tom Yum (Sour and Spicy Soup), and Water Chestnuts in Coconut Milk. We basically spent an entire day eating and cooking! It was a lot of fun, and we were given a recipe book to take home, so we can cook for anybody who is daring enough to taste our new skills!!

Unfortunately, it seems as though our own cooking might have been the cause of our first (and hopefully last!) bought of food poisoning. We were stuck to our rooms for the next few days, and while it deterred us from heading to Pai (we were on a bit of a time constraint, as our second visa only allowed us to be in Thailand until December 5th), it didn't stop us from trekking! At the first sign of feeling better (I had taken some antibiotic "magic pills" provided to us by our travel doctor back in Calgary), we booked a two day one night trek to a Lahu Village. The next morning, our guide JJ picked us up, and we joined two English ladies, a Norweigan couple, 5 Swedes and Japanese Kay in the back of a pickup truck and headed into the mountains. The trek started off at an elephant camp where we rode the elephants down to the river, watched them drink (what an unbelievable thing to watch as they slurp the water into their trunks, then proceed to spray it down their throats), and rode them back up a very steep and bumpy trail. You feel so high on top of an elephant. The mahout sits right on his head in front of you, and ours seemed to grunt commands throughout the ride.

After the ride, we began our trek up to the Lahu Village Tribe. There are 7 tribes left in this particular area, all originating from Myanmar and China, with each tribe speaking its own unique language. Originally opium was their biggest trade, and even three years back, tourists would visit opium dens on their treks. Over the last few years, the Thai government has abolished this, educating the villagers on growing various different crops (although we aren't 100% sure that our guide didn't indulge while we were left alone as dinner was prepared that evening...) In the mountains they grow their own type of rice, which is only harvested once a year (versus 3 times a year for regular rice). It is apparently similar in texture to Japanese sticky rice.

We hiked for about 3 hours, stopping at a waterfall along the way, then traveling up two steep legs: "Oh My Buddha" and "Oh My God" according to JJ. The village was located at the top of the mountain, 1100 meters high. We arrived around 5pm, just in time to witness a beautiful sunset. Our home for the night was a bamboo hut, with mats and blankets placed on the floor. For dinner, a local family cooked us a green curry, bean sprouts dish, and fried chicken. It was amazing! After receiving a Lahu massage, we learned that the families work on a rotation system to care for the trekkers and bring in some income for their families. One of the girls in the family was 18 years old, and carried her 2 year old daughter around on her back with her everywhere. It is common for the women to be married by 15 in these villages. It is also very traditional for the husband to move in with the wife's family, so that her parents can help care for the child.

Although our sleep wasn't the greatest (Kay had the loudest most irregular snore we had ever heard, it was extremely cold at night, and the roosters seemed to celebrate existence every few hours) we were fed full of scrambled eggs the next morning, and we set off back down the mountain. The trek downhill was very steep, but through beautiful jungle. After stopping at another waterfall, we landed back at the river, and walked along the shore to the rafting camp, after passing through several small villages. We took a gentle (level 2, verses the level 5 in Indonesia!) ride on the white water rafts, then switched to bamboo rafts where Matt guided us back to the base camp (our guide followed behind in a different raft).

All in all the trekking experience was amazing, with an entertaining group of people, that all got along great! We had our last meal in Chiang Mai - Spicy Bollywood Indian food! We have booked a 2 day slow boat trip along the Mekong River to Luang Prabang, Laos.

Now for the pictures (sorry they are a bit out of order!):

Pippa's Tom Yam

Matt's Phad Thai

Deep frying the spring rolls.

Pippa's Cashew Nut Chicken

Vegetables at the market. The bottom blue basket are all the different types of eggplants that are found in Thailand.

The baby elephant that followed our group of elephants during the ride. A few trekkers bought bananas to feed the elephants - and they proved to be quite hungry as they forced their trunks into our faces as much as they could!

An orchid and butterfly farm that we stopped up on our way to the elephant camp.

Pippa's Panang Curry

Pippa's Red Curry Paste

Matt's Tom Kha Kai

The sunset from the Lahu Village.

Spider hole!! As you can see, I had to trek in sandles - I lost my Nike shoes on the boat trip from hell on the way to Koh Tao.

Elephant wanting some more banana...

Although you might not know it, we are on an elephant here! More pictures to come from our trekking group once everyone returns home :)

Back in Chiang Mai - Stoked to see an elephant outside of the bar!

One of the waterfalls on our trek.

Beginning the hike back down the mountain.

Mum - haha this one is for you! This is a typical squat toilet, although usually it is cement flooring. These were our bathrooms in the Lahu Village (the shower was a bucket of water filled with ICE cold water).

Our home for the evening.