Chiang Mai - Day 3

Cooking green curry with chicken

I went to the Muay Thai boxing again last night with some people i'd met who did not go on Saturday. It was another great evening and good entertainment for the price. most of the matches were great and went the distance, it's a great night out and something I could watch more often. I'll have to see if this is something they do in Vietnam when I finally get there.

I've been on the cooking course today, we were picked up in the morning and taken to the cooking  school which was not far from our hostel.

Being shown around the market by our guide

First of all we were taken to the local market and given a tour of how it works and the various ingredients used in Thai cooking. This was really good to be shown what some of the strange vegestables are that ive been seeing over the past month and told how they are used.

I got to cook seven different dishes during the course of the day which included fried rice with chicken, green curry with chicken, fried cashew nuts with chicken, spring rolls, chicken in coconut milk soup and mango with sticky rice. I did get to choose from a list what I could cook and only realised after that prety much all my dishes were chicken based.

Sitting down to eat the fried rice with chicken

I was suprised how easy and tasty alot of the dishes were. One great thing was that we got to eat the food we cooked but as you can imagine we were all pretty stuffed by the end of the day.

I'm leaving for the Thailand / Laos border tomorrow morning. I'm booked on a 5.5hr minibus to Chiang Khong where I will stay the night before crossing the Mekong river into Huay Xai, Laos. I'll then have a two day slow boat ride down the  Mekong river stopping at Pak Beng for the night before ending up in Luang Prabang. It will be a shame to leave Chiang Mai as there is so much more I'd like to do.

I made this! Fried rice with chicken

Everyone ive met has said that they really like Chiang Mai. The hostel im in is great and ive met some great people however ive only heard good things about Laos so im looking forward to it and seeing some great scenairy on the slow boat trip.