Charmed by Chiang Mai

Three days of relaxing in Chiang Mai, Thailand has been good for us! After our exhilarating and exhausting Gibbon Experience, we spent one more night in Laos, before crossing the Mekong in a long-tail boat and catching the bus to Chiang Mai. Our first night we took it easy and wandered around the town in search of a Middle Eastern restaurant fellow travelers were raving about. Not too far from our guest house we found Jerusalem Falafal... a hole in the wall eatery that serves some of the best fresh pitas and hummus known to man! (We've eaten there three days straight!) After stuffing ourselves with a fabulous array of Arabic and Mediterranean foods, we waddled to the massage parlor for an hour of relaxation. The next two days were very lazy... a lot of time spent reading, napping, playing cards, and wandering around the city. We also changed accommodations, and moved to a much cleaner and more affordable guest house just up the road from the first. We are in a great location in town... steps away from restaurants (most importantly, Jerusalem Falafal), shops, massage parlors and Internet cafes. We really love Chiang Mai. Its just large enough to be interesting, but small enough to explore on foot. A man-made creek encompasses the center of the city, and crumbling sections of the wall that once enclosed Chiang Mai still stand.
Yesterday evening we had a great time exploring the night market. Many of the stalls were pushing the same old t-shirts and "copy bags" you'd find anywhere in the country, but there were many beautiful and unique items that we hadn't come across before. A highlight for me was finding my favorite wrap skirts that I usually pay close to $30 for at Saturday market, for a mere $6- score! A local artist was creating stunning portraits (for those of you Oregonians, his talent matches the man who creates portraits at the state fair). As I looked through his work, I noticed a portrait of a man in a dish dash. The face was very familiar, so I asked the artist who it was. "Sheik of Dubai," he responded. Ha! What are the odds?! As soon as we told him we lived in Dubai he hopped up and began showing us all his drawings of each of the Sheiks... Mohammed, Zaiyed, etc... How funny!!!
Today we started off the morning with coffee and breakfast at Starbucks! It was great to have a little "western" experience after all this time. During the day we took part in a cooking class at an organic farm just outside of town. We started by going to Chiang Mai's largest market to pick up a few items that weren't found on the farm. Northern Thai cuisine is certainly different from the "Thai food" we know back in the states. Bulgy frogs, pigs' heads, and fried insects were just a few of the items for sale that turned our stomachs at the market. The organic farm was beyond charming, with coconut and banana tree-lined walkways, wood-shuttered buildings, and antique wheelbarrows spilling over with flowers. Our instructor first showed us how to make jasmine and sticky rice. Then we moved to an over-water enclosure, and made curry paste. We were able to select from green, red, or yellow curries (We chose yellow). We chopped, diced, and pounded away with our mortars and pestles for a good 10 minutes, until we had created a thick, heavenly smelling paste. With pastes in hand, we moved into a big airy barn-like structure for cooking. Each person had their own prep table and stove. The first item on the list was making our curries from our homemade pastes... yum! It was surprisingly simple (chicken, potatoes, onion, and coconut milk), and I think something that we can make at home. With our curries transferred into crocks for safe keeping, we made Tom Yum Goong soup, with chili-paste, onions, tomatoes, shrimp, gallangal, Thai parsley, and a handful of other yummy ingredients. The last item for our lunch was stir-fried chicken with cashews. After cooking, we returned to the over-water hut and dove in. YUM!!! We all over-ate, but everything was just too good! Afterwards, Isaac and I wandered around the grounds taking pictures, before we returned to the "kitchen" to prepare spring rolls and coconut sticky rice with mangoes for dessert. I'm not sure how the spring rolls turned out... they looked lovely, but we were so stuffed that we didn't try them. We did, however, bring them back with us for later!
Tomorrow we head off for 3 days at the Elephant Nature Park. We are beyond excited!!!