Buddha Bellies

For our last day in Chiang Mai, we signed up for a full day cooking class at A Lot of Thai. Short story: it was A Lot of Food, and A Lot of Fun. The long story starts with a hotel pickup by our chef's husband in a flashy green motor carriage.

Swank ride, check.

Upon arriving at Chef Yui's aire libre car-port-cum-cooking-school, we were stationed at woks where we would assemble our personal portions of six traditional Thai dishes for the rest of the day.

1. Our pad Thai brings all the boys to the yard.

2. Red and green chicken curry. Ohhh yeah.

3. Tom yum soup with shrimp. Funny thing about Thais, it's hotter than the dickens and they're still eating soup! Seasoned with sweat.

4. Cashew chicken, food of the gods.

5. Spring rolls!

6. And a coconut mango sticky rice that is so good I'd Muay Thai box someone for it.

Midway through the day, the crew took a break from stuffing our sweaty- sorry, "glistening"- faces, for an educational outing to the market. The stalls had some of the most gorgeous produce, much of which I've never seen. We were introduced to delicacies like squid jerkey, 100-day old eggs (vom), and I even tried a flying ant (no it does not taste like chicken).

 

So how does one round off the most excellently filling vacation day ever? With a dip in the pool and an hour long foot massage, of course!