Day 3...or the day I spent at a Thai farm.

The food market

One of the top things on my Thailand bucket list was taking a Thai cooking class.  There are a ton of
options in Chiang Mai so I just went on my hostel's recommendation to Sammy's farm.  Sammy was born in Chiang Mai and studied Thai culinary arts at the university in town.  He bought a farm outside of the city a while ago and built a huge cooking area for tours.  It probably was a great investment for him as the day-long course cost 1,000 Baht (or a little over 30 dollars).  To put that in perspective, I can buy a water bottle at 7-11 for 7 Baht.

Sammy squeezes some milk out of shredding coconut

The farm is family run, Sammy's daughter even helped us out.  I'll spare you the play by play of the cooking in the bulk of this blog post, but you can scroll down and see pictures of the process!

The tour was pretty fun, especially since a bunch of American exchange students were along for the ride. Their semester in Thailand wraps up this weekend and it was an end of the year treat for them.  I gave a lot of reverse culture shock advice, which I imagine might be even worse moving from Thailand to the U.S. than Poland.  One of the girls on the program was from MSU and she owns a DCFC shirt!  I was wearing mine and she asked me right away if I was from Detroit!  The world is such a small small place.  I was wearing the shirt quite on purpose as I watched City play on a live stream this morning before the tour started.  One of the guys bought me an apple. It was a weird tasting apple but the first uncooked piece of food I ate in Thailand so it was really delicious.

We started out the day in the market.  Sammy showed us different types of rice. The really cool part
was seeing how coconut milk and oil is processed.  Thai people go to the market almost every day and buy it fresh.  Anywhere you go in the markets, there are huge coconuts being sold to drink from.  You buy one, they cut it open and give you a straw. I haven't tried it yet, but maybe tomorrow night when I go to the markets.  Also, shredded coconut tastes 100% different than coconut we have in the States.

My first round!

The cooking class included a lot of different options.  Everyone made a main course, appetizer, soup, dessert, and stir fry.  In each category, we got to choose from three different options. I made a green chicken curry, chicken in coconut milk soup, mango and sticky rice, papaya salad and Pad Thai (a noodle dish with eggs and stuff).  The food is so freaking good.  It's better than even the street vendors, probably because I helped make it all.  I was pretty impressed with myself.  There's a pretty good chance I'll even be able to recreate some of it back home because we all got a cookbook!  I loved everything that I made,but the mango and sticky rice was one of the most delicious things ever.  The papaya salad was kind of weird because it's raw papaya mixed with some spicy dressing (we even made the dressing from scratch).  The dressing had chili pepper, garlic, and lime...so there were lots of different flavors, but it was DELICIOUS!

Chilling in a hammock

Sammy gave us a break from cooking halfway through the day.  During that time, we could walk around the farm and hang out in hammocks.  It was the most peaceful I have felt the entire time I've been gone.  There were even butterflies in his garden!  The "siesta time" was well-deserved and just absolutely beautiful. Laying in the hammocks, no one really talked so all you could hear were birds chirping. It was so different than being in the city!

Check out the video. It's so peaceful and silent. Seriously, your speakers aren't broken it's really that quiet!

The only downside to the farm trip was it was a full 8 hours without air conditioning.  Sammy's farm had some fans, but they weren't all that numerous.  Maybe some sweat added flavor to our food. Hahaha.  After the getting back, I took a shower at like 3 in the afternoon...something I would never do back home!  I hate showers, but here it's one of the few times I feel cool.  Except, in the middle of the day, the water is super warm from the sun.  Oh well...disappointing!

One of the temples I wandered through

I found a Catholic cathedral in Chiang Mai and decided to go to Mass that evening so I could have a
lazy Sunday morning. Plus, if the Mass times weren't right, I could try again on Sunday without stressing out.  Since I got back at 3 and Mass wasn't until 7:30 p.m., I decided to chill out in the hostel for a little while (air conditioning break!).  Around 5 though, I got kind of bored of sitting in the hostel (first day I've had energy at this time) so I decided to walk the 2 1/2 miles to the church instead of waiting around for a taxi.

Wandering is one of my favorite parts of traveling.  I had 2 1/2 hours to do a 45 minute walk so there was a lot of wandering.  I wandered through temples and more
temples.  I wandered through residential streets and alleyways. I wandered through some local shops. And then I wandered right through the set up for the night market!  I hadn't planned on checking out a market, but I figured since it was halfway between the hostel and church, I would return after Mass to check out what kinds of souvenirs I might want to buy.

Cathedral of the Sacred Heart

I didn't wander enough though.  It as about 7:05 as I walked up to the cathedral.  There were already people going in so I was relieved that there was probably going to be Mass.  Well, the sign said Mass started at 7:00.  Oops.  Good thing I didn't wander too much!

The most beautiful thing about Catholicism is even though I speak zero Thai, I know what's happening. I can't even for the life of me remember how to say "Thank you".  However, I could still mutter along responses in English because Mass is the same. Walking into a church in a foreign country is the closest I can feel to going home!

One of the many night markets

Afterwards, I walked through three or four different night markets.  The Thai styles of scarves and
clothes are just so beautiful. I wish I had ten million suitcases to take things home in!  I was a good kid and only bought one scarf and a few gifts for my cousins.  I was proud of myself!

More Pictures! 

Everyone gets their own work station.  I was pretty impressed with this because my "cooking class" in Barcelona involved just watching a dude cook for us.

My work station

The main ingredients of curry paste. We mashed them up with a mortar and pestle.

Working in the heat for my fooood.

We were all super hungry so Sammy started cutting bananas off a tree.  Not even joking.

Green chicken curry...but we didn't get to eat it! Had to make soup and pad thai first.

Ingredients for Pad Thai...tofu, bean sprouts, rice noodles, egg, and pickled radish

Garnished with some peanuts for a little extra crunch!

Siesta time.

Papaya Salad ingredients.  The lime, chili pepper, bean, and garlic were the dressing.

So weird, but so yummy...and the first raw fruit I've had in almost a week.

Mango and sticky rice. Oh. My. Goodness. The sticky rice is made in sweetened milk and it's so bad for you but so good for your taste buds.

Sammy's toilet or the "Throne" as he called it.  Weird place to pee.