Week in Chiang Mai

We arrived in Chiang Mai on a plane from Bangkok on Saturday evening and checked into what was meant to be interim accomodation in SK House, a guesthouse at the north-eastern corner of the old town. Hannah was feeling extremely ill when we arrived so we took it easy for the first few days until she felt a bit better.

On Tuesday, we went on a one-day Thai cooking course, where we learned to cook such delights as tom ka gai (chicken soup with coconut milk - awesome) and green curry (also awesome). I was very pleased with how this went; we each managed to cook five dishes over the course of the day, all of which tasted reasonably authentic and most of which tasted good. I'm going to attempt to cook some Thai dishes when we return to the UK, although I can't see it going as well without constant supervision from an expert teacher.

On Wednesday, we explored the city a little more, visiting Wat Phra Sing, one of the larger temples in Chiang Mai. Thailand's Theravada religion is everywhere, especially in Chiang Mai, where every street seems to have multiple beautiful temples on it and where monks can be seen on the streets in their distinctive orange robes. We witnessed the monks in Wat Phra Singh drawing beautiful works of art, with reference to the artwork on the walls of one of the temple buildings. I'm hoping to visit another temple on Saturday for "Monk Chat" to ask the monks about their religion.

That evening, alas, I came down with a rather bad case of traveller's diarrhoea. This rather cussed our plans for Thursday and Friday. Luckily, I seem to be getting over it now so we hope to take a bus to the top of Doi Suthep tomorrow. This is a large hill overlooking the city, with a famous temple at the top.

I'll try to post some photos at some point. Until then, adios.