ChrisJenTravel.com – Honeymoon Trek

The most relaxing day in Chang Mai was the day of our cooking class. We slept in a little, made up the sheets on our plywood beds and were taxied to a nearby, open air cooking school. We sipped tea as we waited for our only other student, Pierre from France. While Pierre’s girlfriend was in massage school for the day, he was learning to cook Thai for her. Little did we know, Pierre had some cooking skills, and would be embarrasing us soon enough on the woks.  Marc, one of our female instructors, walked us to the market so we could learn about all of the vegetables, spices and tofu variations that we would be using in class. There were many variations we hadn’t seen before but Marc assured us we could find them in the States at any Asian market.  Several different kinds of chillis, ginger roots, lemon grass, basil, coriander, garlic, peppercorn, onions, tamarind, palm sugar, fish and oyster sauces and shrimp paste were on the list and turned out to be common ingrediants in most Thai cooking. We made our way back with our purchases in woven baskets with an unexpected appetizer Marc had picked up for us –  steamed, sweetened sticky rice and steamed banana wrapped in banana leaves.  At our first sampling, we knew we were in for a fun day of eating.

Throughout the day, we cooked four courses of meals with a break in between each to eat our creations – green and panang chicken curries, spring rolls, pad thai, sweet and sour chicken, cashew nut chicken, hot and sour soup, coconut chicken soup, spicy glass noodle salad and papaya salad.  If these sound good I can assure you they tasted even better. We were amazed at how easily we whipped up the colorful dishes and how good our own cooking could be. About two courses in, however, we realized we should have skipped breakfast for the all-day feast.  We struggled through the last few courses but managed to sample everything we cooked.  We knew everything would taste even better at home when we could cook for family and friends so we were excited they gave us cookbooks for everything we had made. Completely stuffed, we made our way back to the hotel for an hour’s rest before starting our long journey to Cambodia that night.

Our next day of trekking was much more interesting. We were picked up in a van, which was very full with about 12 of us. Mia, the guide, was hilarious. A true comic, she stood in the front of the van, looking at her audience and spoke into a microphone. Obsessed with Madonna and kareoke, we were able to catch up on all MTV TRL hits that we had been missing. Repeatedly, Mia threatened us with having to sing karaoke, told us about the history of Thailand and about the past and present culture, explained how the elephant was revered and dryly told us that elephant was on the menu at lunch – tastes like chicken. Our first stop was the orchid garden. It was simply breathtaking for anyone who likes tropical flowers. The hybrids that were created were unique and the orchids hung high and flowed like rainbow water.

Next was to Chiang Dao Cave, a Buddhist temple built in an underground cave. [read on]