Today was the day to learn how to cook like a thai! After trying most of there famous dishes it was time to bash out a few of our own. We found this great little cooking class called 'A lot of Thai' it was ran by a woman called Yui. She had cooked with Gordan Ramsey and Jamie Oliver, teaching them about thai cooking. We had booked it a week earlier and were quite excited for this, it cost 1500 baht (£30) each but being the best rated on trip advisor we had to do it!

We were picked up by the woman herself at 9:30, she told us a little about herself and that she loved cooking! She definitely does, she got excited multiple times throughout the day about ingredients and the aroma of the food. She spoke brilliant english and was great fun too. We picked up another couple (Andy and Laura) and arrived at her place about 5 minutes later. When we arrived we spotted there old VW Camper, the paint was looking a little worse for wear but we instantly wanted it!

The group we had today had 10 people init, 4 of them were only staying for half of the day though. It was a complete mix, Andy and Laura from England, a man from America, young lad from Japan, two girls from Canada, a girl from Korea and two older women from Taiwan. We all sat down and introduced ourself and then Yui gave us a little bit of knowledge about the ingredients she uses, her history, her family and he love for food. Our first dish to cook was Pad Thai, its basically Noodles, Tofu, Veg and Chicken. Yui's instructions were great, we all watched her prepare everything and had a little taste. It was awesome! We were then sent on our way to prepare our own ingredients and get cooking. We had a great little area to cook, individual gas hob, nice little chopping board, utensils and all the ingredients arranged on a plate ready for us to have a go.

It was quite funny on our table, Andy and Laura were just like us so we were constantly bantering each other and all having inputs on what to do next. We ended up basically all firing answers in at once and getting a little confused, we ended up going with the majority vote, ha ha! The meal was so quick and simple to make, from start to finish it took around 10-15 minutes. Ive gotta say it tasted pretty good too. Yui told us how to taste the food and use your senses of flavour so that you can season the dish correctly. Her teaching skills definitely worked as each dish we made was great.

Next up was Tom Yum soup with shrimp and Green and Red thai curry. There were both amazing and had a little fun garnishing them too. After we had made each meal we all sat down and tasted them, at this going rate we were going to be pretty full by the end of the day!

After we had finished the dishes we were all taken to the market where Yui gets her ingredients, it was a big indoor market where they literally sold anything you could think of. She took us around the different stalls, explaining about all the herbs, shallots, garlic etc. She showed us how to look for quality ingredients and made us smell everything. It was a great little experience but we were all being attacked by mozzies! We found some Century eggs (not brave enough to try them yet) and bought ourselves some little measuring spoons like we were using in class. There was a little cold drink/smoothie stall at the market so literally everyone got involved and took one on. After this we headed back to the class, this was when the 4 left the group and we got cooking again.

This afternoon we were cooking Sweet and Sour chicken and cashew nuts, sticky rice and mango along with spring rolls! Mmmmm :-) we were looking forward to this. We were shown how to steam the sticky rice correctly and left this for 15 minutes whilst we cooked our next dish. Chicken and cashews is a great little dish and was fun to cook. Again its such a simple recipe and takes minutes to prepare and cook. This was delicious and by this meal we were starting to get a little full! Once we had finished the sticky rice was done and we were ready to make our coconut milk and sugar paste mix and tuck in. Kara wasn't looking forward to this but tried it anyways, it was better than what we had at the market but she still wasn't convinced. Once that was polished off I was literally ready to pop, spring rolls still to come though!

For the spring rolls we had to quickly whip up a mini stir fry mix for the filling, the spring roll pastry was pre made so once cooled we were ready to get them wrapped up. This was good fun and we actually managed to boss it! They were now ready for cooking. We were shown how to get the oil to the perfect temperature, too hot and they would burn too quickly, too low and they would absorb to much oil and become greasy. They cooked really quickly and become a lovely golden brown colour. I can officially say we are thai cooking pros now! ha ha

A quick bit of sweet chilli and plum dipping sauce and we smashed them back after a few selfies of course! They were great and again so easy to make. After this we had a great little chat with Yui about the day and were dropped back to our hotels. We had planned to meet Andy and Laura on the night for a few drinks as we were all clucking for a beer after the challenging day!

We quickly freshened up in our room and headed out to the 48 garage (camper van bar) on our trusty little moped. Even though she struggles a little to start first time, bless her! Two bottles of Chang for 100 baht (£2) happy days, although we were pretty full we ordered a portion of french fries to see us through. We ended up having two more drinks before Andy and Laura rocked up. Me and Kara had planned a quiet night so we could be fresh for our Elephant trekking day tomorrow. That wasn't about to happen! Once we all got chatting the drinks starting flying back and more and more were being ordered. We had a little change collection going as the toilet was 5 baht (10p) a go, an once we had opened the tap we couldn't stop going. We ended up ordering a few more rounds and a bucket of Sangsum (rum) and coke. This was pretty strong but didn't last long with 4 of us smashing it back. We had a good laugh at people with selfie sticks (the GoPro was exempt from this) and got a cheeky one with a Japenese man and woman behind us. He loved us and bought us some monkey nuts, although there were really soft and actually quite strange although delicious!

We moved on after this to another bar just across the river, we loaded the moped up with all 4 of us and arrived in no time! Parked right outside and got straight back on it! 4 Chang's please! This soon turnt into another 3/4 rounds, half way through they started to close up and I think we actually became part of a Thai lock in! Quality :-) after this we were all pretty ruined, nobody fancied the walk back so we all hopped back on the moped and headed home. We dropped Andy and Laura off and we then left pretty confused as to where we had to go, out come google maps and we soon got back. Time to hit the pillow and try and feel fresh for tomorrow! We got in at 3am and had to be up at and out the door for 9! WTF?? This could be horrendous! Although its not as bad as Andy and Laura who had to be up at half 4 to watch the sunrise with the monks an Doi Suthep! Shocker!

Check out tomorrow's to see how we got on!

J&K over and out!