The smell of Thai aromatic rice

Amidst the car exhaust, the sound of sam lors, the swarms of Thais on scooters and the views of the river and moat in this city, smelling Thai aromatic rice on the streets of Chiang Mai is an experience in its own. Chiang Mai, although a city, has the feel of an island. The entire place is an array of small wooden houses and a few 2/3 storey buildings surrounded by blooming vegetation. Although it is landlocked, it has a moat surrounding the old town in the form of a square, and a river running through it so it is very easy to get used to cycling around the place. Life, once again, is on the street, and the selection of eateries is superb. Most everyone seems to own a barbecue and have cooking skills. The streets are filled with grilled fish and satay chicken, banan leaf parcels of sticky rice & banana, bags of fresh fruits and soaring daytime and nightime markets, where you can get anything from Thai trousers to a 30 minute foot massage for only 2 euros. There are plenty of lit huts with live music na drinks and most Thais speak some English which makes life SO MUCH EASIER!!! Of course, one makes the effort to master some key phrases but the fact that Thai is a tone language (like Chinese) means half the time I'm either saying something unintelligible or completely wrong!

Anyhow, I LOVE this place! Cindie, you were right!!!! So, what have I been up to? Well, first off, I met 3 girls in my guesthouse who are really cool. They all live in the Philippines, but only one of them is from there. The 2nd one is an American, raised in Hawaii and the 3rd one is half Japanese, half Austrian, raised in Australia and living in the Philippines too! How about that for cultural diversity! Anyway, we met in the guesthouses and did yesterday's cooking class together. They're off to Laos tomorrow and I am probably gonna go with them for 7 days to experience that. Everyone I've met is on their way to Laos. Looks like quite the place to visit among the traveller's network. Anyway, it's only a few hours away and it'll still give me time to come back to continue on my excursions. I've decided 2 days of cooking school is enough. You eat soo much that I am scared of doing 5 days, quite frankly, unless I am prepared to balloon and fall inside the wok. However, I will tell ya that I have, in just 24 hours, become an expert Thai cook and look forward to delighting you all with an array of local curries, steamed fish in banana leaf parcels, prawn salads, mango salads and other local delights like tom ga kai soup. The class is held in the restaurant owner's home in the Chiang Mai's countryside, in a bamboo pagoda area surrounded by mangroves! It is awesome and you eat everything you cook....if you want, of course! And you get the cookbook to go with it too!

So when I return from Laos, I'll do the second class, followed by my 3 days reflexology course. Then I plan on heading out 1 hour away to the Elephant Conservation Centre, for a 3 day home- stay where you bathe, feed and learn about these well revered animals and sleep in bamboo huts in the forest with them. You also get to ride them bare back on their neck, their strongest area (unlike the elephant chairs which dangerously sit in one of the elephant's weaker back areas). After that, I'll head down to Umphang to do a 5 day trek along the Mae Khlong River, (with rafting), camping by hot springs and trekking alongside typical Karen villages and visiting the Tee Lor Su Falls (200m high and 400m wide). I'll eventually make my way south to Khao Sok National Park where you sleep on treehouses, and then to do some sea kayaking in Krabi....and maybe some well deserved sunbathing and diving off the cost of Ko Phi Phi and Ko Tao islands. Thailand has so much to see this is just a start! Phew! I may have to stay here a bit longer when I return from Vietnam!

I've uploaded some links to some websites of interest for ya. Take care and keep reading!