Chiang Mai, Thailand - Part 1

We have rented an apartment here on the outskirts of Chiang Mai for 1 month.
It was hard to find one with a kitchen so we're paying a bit more than you need to at 600 USD plus electricity, water, and internet. The "kitchen" is also a bit of an understatement with 2 small burners and no oven. Then again, I soon found out how expensive it is to try to cook Western food here so we mainly just go out to eat anyway with a few simple meals like pasta, rice, PB&J sandwiches and hot cereal being mainstays. The apartment does however have a very nice layout, being virtually perfect in size and flow for our needs. It's been a well deserved reward to come home to such a nice place every night instead of worrying about accommodation or transportation to our next destination.

Our kitchen

The living room with zebra print furniture...

Our balcony that we don't utilize enough

Being 3 km out of the main square, we also rented a motorbike. Here, they drive on left side of the road which takes a bit to get used to, especially when crossing the street as a pedestrian. There are lots of one-ways near town as it is a walled city, shaped as a perfect square. The inner road goes counterclockwise and outer road goes clockwise so making right-hand U-turns are common. There's not much motorized traffic within the city square, though, making it super easy to walk around and explore. There are a few Buddhist temples, numerous 7/11s, and massage parlors on every block.

Cooking the first meal in our kitchen

Shopping in the market for fruit as it was closing

There are also quite a few vegan restaurants here. At May Kaidee I've had peanut curry, pumpkin hummus, fresh spring rolls, noodle soup, and green curry. She also has 3 restaurants in Bangkok and is in the process of opening one in New York City. At Aum I've tried the pad thai, red curry, green curry, sweet and sour vegetables, and a mango fruit shake with spirulina. The atmosphere here is a bit more comfy and there are low tables upstairs where you sit on cushions on the floor, much more comfortable than you might think. We've also gone to Taste from Heaven once where I had the set lunch of delicious spring rolls, noodle soup, Thai iced tea. I've since bought the tea and tried to recreate it at home without quite as much success since we don't have any brown sugar.

Talking to a monk about the meditation retreat. I was nervous!

I took a full day cooking class at the Thai Kitchen Cookery Center. Although not 100%, it was very veg friendly. I was picked up at my condo at 9 AM and brought back at 3 PM. After choosing 6 dishes to cook (from a menu of 7 categories with 3 dishes each), we headed to the market to learn about common ingredients and uses. This made me feel much more comfortable buying food at the market although I haven't yet had the chance to recreate the dishes I made. I chose to cook pad Thai, green curry paste, green curry with TVP, sweet and sour vegetables, Thai herb soup, and mango sticky rice. All of the food was incredibly delicious except for the herb soup which had way too much ginger.

Herbs and veg

Longan, rambutan, dragonfruit, mangosteen, and mangoes

Crushing coconut flesh to make coconut cream and milk

The program was very well run, pulling off great timing with all of the different recipes and 14 students. We would split into 3 groups based on what we chose in each category. Each table had baskets and trays of ingredients set up so we could finish the prep as the instructor modeled for us. Most of our food surprisingly took only a couple of minutes to cook in the wok. Then we would go into a dining room and eat while the employees cleaned up the stations and prepared them for the next dish. The only thing I would change about my experience would be to do a half day course since we only cooked 1 extra dish, had to wait almost an hour for the evening class to get back from the market, and paid an extra $8. But we did get a certificate which qualifies us to do.... nothing! We all joked that we could now open our own Thai restaurants back in our home countries.

Pad Thai

Handmade curry paste

Ingredients for green curry

Sweet and sour vegetables and green curry

I took another course in Thai massage with Ming at MTM Massage. In 3 hours, I learned techniques for doing face, shoulder, back, leg, and foot massages. We practiced on each other and I joked that the only reason she teaches classes is so that she can get massaged! It was a fun experience and definitely something I will use in the future. Thanks to a notebook with pictures and my notes, I'll be able to remember all of the steps. Carlos enjoyed his 1.5 hour massage although I had to make a few tweaks per his feedback. You can actually get a Thai massage here for $4-6 per hour but not every masseuse is well-trained. I went to a place near our condo and was rather disappointed with the massage as it hurt more than it felt good, ha. Looking forward to practicing these lessons and teaching people so I can get a massage in return!

Monk buying a smartphone

If you haven't heard already, I'm flying home to Kalamazoo on August 25th. It has been a wonderful and exhausting last couple of months... actually all of 2012, to be honest. I've done and seen a lot of things I never imagined I would but I'm definitely ready to be back in the states and onto my next chapter which is hopefully graduate school in Philadelphia *crosses fingers*

Today I'm off to a mini 1-day meditation retreat which will be followed by a week in a forest monastery called Wat Tam Wua, between Pai and Mae Hong Son. More on that and my blossoming yoga practice in my next post!

Mango with sticky rice, a classic Thai dessert