We awoke a little lazily after our late night out. The Private Eye headed out to run a few errands (drop off laundry at one of the nearby homes that offer the service, renew our bike rental, etc.). I tided the room before heading to Black Canyon Coffee, which although very bland inside actually makes excellent coffee, to read my book. Almost everyone we know who’s been to Thailand has recommended taking a cooking class, and Chiang Mai is supposed to be one of the best places to do so. The classes range in complexity from an all day class that involves traveling to a local farm to an afternoon/evening affair for 4 hours. Given our late rise, we decided that we’d try to do the latter. We’d bike to and wander around a shopping district in the northwest to try to find The Private Eye another pair of pants, then come back to the old city for our cooking class.

So we ventured out to this one Soi nearby where there seemed to be several cooking classes, with the hopes of signing up for one this afternoon. None of them panned out, including the two our guest house hosts recommended. Since we’re leaving tomorrow morning for Tha Tun, our situation looked grim. But I remembered what our new Melbourne friends has said the night before about finding rooms – just try again later, and chances something will have opened up. So we ventured to the northwest, planning to stop by Asia Scenic, the most highly recommended school, just before the class to see if an opening had appeared.

There’s a huge amount of street food of many kinds, in a fashion that regulations in a place like San Francisco would never allow. Yes, that old man has a sidecar on his motorcycle, which is a propane stove and table. Yes, that’s a huge wok of boiling oil that he’s frying chicken in with that stove, 6 inches from the sidewalk. If you tripped, you could land your hand or face in the oil. In return, a large, enough-for-lunch fried leg and thigh is about 85 cents. The pickings were slim today compared to last night, but this fried chicken vendor was along the road were bicycling on, so lunch for 2 (fried chicken, sticky rice, some vegetables) for $2, slightly less than a cappuccino. A papaya salad is $8 for takeout at Regent Thai in Noe Valley; from a street vendor, it’s 85 cents.

While Parisians famously frown at street food (the recent encroachment of falafel is fascinating), the Thai love it. But this reflects something about the cuisines as well. While a properly made coq au vin takes 3-4 hours to make, a good 90 minutes of which is work, most Thai dishes are astoundingly simple. You can make a bunch of them in the morning and serve them all day. Furthermore, seemingly very different dishes turn out to have almost identical ingredients. The only difference between a red and a green curry is the chili pepper used (fresh green or dried red). Pad See Yew, Pad Thai, and other stir fry dishes have identical seasonings, just different ingredients. So one set of prep can provide for many different dishes.

We dropped by Asia Scenic at 4pm, and, indeed, they had space for 2. We wandered to a nearby coffee bar along this narrow, quiet Soi and read in the shade of a forested oasis before heading back over for our class.

The class itself was delightful. Our group of 12 had four people from Toronto, four from San Francisco, two from Sydney, and two from Frankfurt. The other Californians were really from Sonoma, so we talked a bit about markets to buy the ingredients. Of the 6 possible courses, 2 were picked for us (curry paste and curry) and we as a group could pick 2 from appetizer, soup, stir fry, and dessert. We chose soup and stir fry. For each course, you chose one of 3-4 dishes. After choosing your dishes, you walk to a nearby market to have a bunch of ingredients explained and shown. 3 hours, some chopping, propane, and stirring later, we ate our own cooked Thai food and left with a cookbook.

Tomorrow morning we’re catching a 4 hour bus to Tha Ton, to meet up with The Expat Teacher again. We plan to stay there until the 5th, at which point we will either head east to Pai and Mae Hong Sun, or north to Laos. I’m itching to get south, to the islands and beaches, Indonesia especially, but doing so before the 15th is probably a bad idea due to the super-high tourist season. I’m fascinated by Brunei Darussalam, in part because I haven’t yet heard anyone say anything about it and in part because of its virgin rainforests. I wonder if it’s off the beaten track because there’s no alcohol, so not a partying destination? We will have to ask The Expat Teacher tomorrow.

– The Professor