Chiang Mai #3 ELEPHANT DAY

25th June

After yesterday's busy stuffed out day we had more of a stroll around Chiang Mai! Walked to a cafe called Blue Diamond - an amazing breakfast place if you are a lover of good breakfasts like myself. Apple and cinnamon pancake mmmm!

We took a long old walk to the university where we picked up a red taxi to the National Park to visit Wat Phra That Doi Suthep. The views were stunning, shame it started to rain ha. The stairs look dreadful but it really wasn't bad at all, totally worth it especially for seeing all the gold! 

Early night ready for tomorrows day.. ekkk.

26th June

Best day yet! Woke up bright and early to be picked up for the Elephant Nature Park day trip. As we sat in the truck we watched a documentary about the elephant sanctuary, some stories were unbelievably sad!

The park was beautiful, around 39 elephants including 6 months and 9 months little'uns. All with different backgrounds such as orphaned, tourism accidents and land mine accidents. We feed them water melon, pumpkin and bananas followed by a walk to see a baby along with its mum & nanny by the river. After lunch we headed back down to the river to wash and feed them again. Such a wonderful experience, they are such peaceful creations! Perfect day that I will never forget!

We got back around 5:30 and headed down to Lemon Grass again. The spring rolls there are delicious. Then to top it all off we watched the Cabret Show!! Hahaha was a unique show to say the least... 

Chiang Mai #2

23rd June 2014

We packed our bags and headed to Varada Place! If you are planning a trip to Chiang Mai I strongly recommend staying in this guest house, Varada is wonderful. Our tuk-tuk driver however had no idea where it was so had to stop and ask for directions ha. 

The rain began so we headed into a posh'ish restaurant where I ate pineapple rice with cashews and raisins, never thought a bowl of rice could taste so good! We then visited some temples, our favourite being Wat Chedi Luang in the center of the historic Old Town. 

This evening we ate at Lemon Grass which is the top on Trip Advisor and I can certainly understand why! I had a beef  stir fry with cashews nuts as well as chicken satay with homemade peanut butter sauce. It was absolutely amazing, I just wanted to eat everything off the menu and the staff were just the friendly individuals!

24th June

After our picnic breakfast - Frosties from the trusty 7 Eleven, we got picked up for our Thai Farm Cooking School! We hopped in the front and taken to the local market to shop for some ingredients along with descriptions on all the different sauces i.e. soy sauce, fish sauce, oyster sauce... and some amazing palm sugar! 

When we arrived at the farm our teacher named Ning gave us some sombreros to wear along with an apron and took us around to pick some chilies and other ingredients for our curry pastes!  

I choose to make the Green Thai Curry. Using a pestle and mortar we ground the ingredients together to form a paste like peanut butter texture. 

Next was the coconut soup! Soo goood, can't really remember how I made that but was the best soup I have ever tried. Time for the green curry and apparently mine was the best ;). Much easier than it looks and so tasty, along with some amazing sticky and jasmine rice. 

After a little walk around the farm we got back to make a stir fry. I chose sweet and sour but mine didn't turn out great but Alice's chicken with cashews nut was delicious! We put the meals together along with rice and papaya salad and ate with the group.

Spring roll time! So simple yet so tasty. Ning wasn't feeling great but cheered up when she noticed our group had left the spring rolls steaming for a lot longer than they should have been.. oopsie. Last but not least.. Mango with sticky rice. Omg, if you ever go to Thailand you must try this. It was like rice pudding but  much tastier in my opinion. Whilst we ate and drank lemon grass tea, Ning wrapped up our spring rolls in a leaf parcel with soya sauce ready for the drive back. 

Luke for the Thai Farm messaged me so we went to Zoe's bar - the main tourist bar, and also happened to bumped into my friend Alex who works at the bar with me ha! It's a shame you only get to meet these people once or twice but was still a great evening and a suberb day. Highlyyyy recommend a cooking course in Chiang Mai especially Thai Farm!  

Chiang Mai #1

20th June 

Today began with a 14 hour train journey from Bangkok to Chiang Mai via sleeper train from Hualamphong station at 7:35pm. We sat in 2nd class with two girls from Germany however they shooted off to bed pretty early. During the day we made our way to the National Museum, a nice place to see even more Buddhas! The funeral carts were pretty impressive though. 

21st June

The sleeper train was an experience and a half, I must of had at least 4 hours sleep.. if that. We took a stroll into Chiang Mai Old Town and had a 'proper' (not sure what I meant by that) Thai lunch at a place named Blue Shop. I had a beef soup with a Chang beer, which was delicious. We then booked up the Thai Farm Cooking School and dined at a place named Dash! It was beautiful, a wooden structure that you would find in Disney Land ha. Had a green Thai curry which I would highly recommend if you ever visit!

Blue Shop

Beef Soup

Dash, Green Thai Curry

 

22nd June

A jungle trek was booked for today and after some standard fried eggs on toast we got into a shared taxi to an orchid and butterfly farm, that was lovely. From there we went up the mountains for an elephant trek. I had never wanted to do this whilst in Thailand and probably regret ever doing this, they looked tired, chained up and just unhealthy. After the short walk my emotions sank and I felt pretty down the rest of the day. We stopped off for some pineapple and rice then trekked up to a waterfall that was beautiful and a nice place to cool off. The trip then consisted of some white water rafting and bamboo rafting both of which was a fail as the river was pretty low.

Tour guide made us banana leaf hats

The evening on the other hand was one of the best. We found a restaurant named Cooking Love on the handy Trip Advisor and decided to make our way there. The owner was brilliant and apparently had reservations all evening. To start we ate shrimp springs rolls followed by a HUGE mango curry. Was beautiful. From there we took a walk to realize the massive Sunday market was on. I purchased an elephant apron from a deaf community, some massage oils (free massage included) and a wooven elephant magnet for my nan. Highly recommend this market if you are ever in Chiang Mai on the weekend! 

Cooking Love