Feasting in the City

We've really been enjoying our time in Chaing Mai thus far. Yesterday evening we headed out to the Night Bazaar which is held every night in the city. The streets were lined with people selling all kinds of things including Tiffany and Co. jewellery, clothes, laterns and Thai handicrafts. It's always fun wandering through the streets checking everything out, and people watching is always entertaining! The best part of the night was that we ran into a beekeeper selling honey and other bee related products. We had the opportunity to talk with him for a while and learned about how honey production happens here, which is quite different than they way Brian does things at home. It was also great, because we got to sample about 6 different kinds of honey from the area here. The guy, whose name is Leo, was super friendly and even gave us a free jar of honey and wouldn't accept anything for it. It was a cool opportunity!

This is Leo, the beekeeper, in his honey store.

Chaing Mai is surrounded by a moat, and there are old remains of crumbled wall around the city as well. It's really neat and quite beautiful!

Brian and I went to a great coffee shop last night. This was Brian's latte.

Today was also an excellent day! We took a Thai cooking class, which I've been looking forward to even before we arrived here! I wasn't disappointed. The morning started out with a tour of the market where we were introduced to a lot of the different ingredients that make up Thai cuisine. They have many different herbs, vegetables and fruits here than we have at home. The rest of the day we spent making Thai dishes, (5 each) and eating the fruit of our labour! We made Cashew Chicken, Pad Thai, two different types of curry, two different soups, spring rolls, fish cakes, and mango and sticky rice. We were quite stuffed at the end of the day as we were eating constantly from about 10-4.

Rice in the local market...there are many different kinds!

Some of the produce in the market.

Some of the fruit including wax apples, guava and dragon fruit. Below are some of the fruit cut open for one of our snacks.

We had a really great group of people to take the course with and have learned alot of the secrets to making great Thai food. They sent us home with a cook book too, so great ready for a Thai feast when we come home.

The happy cooks.

Making red curry paste.

Brian and his fishcakes.

Making coconut milk.

Yummy spring rolls!

Tomorrow we're planning on doing a motorbike adventure to explore a couple of the national parks in the area. The parks promise a lot of great scenery, so we're really looking forward to it.