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The Sunday Night Walking street was a similar market to the one we'd visited Saturday night, but was much, much bigger. The food stalls were plentiful and we scored some great chicken shawarma, cheap pad thai, fresh sugar donuts, and amazing fish-shaped waffles on a stick! The vendors were mostly "same same" as the night before, but it was still fun to look and experience the chaos of the street. There was also a ton of live music floating around the market; almost every block had someone singing or playing some sort of instrument. We even found a small stage set up with a great Thai-latin jazz band! So good! Mark has been handling these crowded, hot Asian markets exceptionally well, but even still, we didn't stay too late.
Monday morning we decided to walk around the nearby temples in the morning before it got too hot. The 2 temples closest to us are among the oldest ones in the city; Wat Chedi Luang has a huge stupa dating back to the 1400s that is in ruins and currently being restored. The grounds around this temple are beautiful and contain 2 old and GIANT trees that were planted when the city of Chiang Mai was founded. After visiting a couple other temples and having lunch, we came back to Wat Chedi Luang on our way by and happened to be there as a bus full of young monks was unloading and heading into the main temple. They must've been on vacation because many of them had cameras and they were documenting their trip. We followed the line of them into the main temple and sat while they kneeled to chant and pray. It was a cool for both sight and sound.
We spent the afternoon, as we do every day, relaxing and cooling off around the pool. That night, we walked out of the Old City and to the heavily tourist area by the Night Bazaar. After spending days in the older part of town, it almost felt like being back in Bangkok to see the huge, fancy hotels and numerous American fast food joints. And here, again, was another night market even bigger than the Sunday Night Walking Street. The Bazaar stretched at length along one main road, but then snaked down side streets, into courtyards, and into buildings. It seemed never-ending! It was more of a tourist/souvenir market, with similar wares to what we saw in Bangkok - less handicrafts and such, but still fun to look!
Tuesday morning, we had signed up for a cooking class, the Chiang Mai Thai Farm Cooking School. We were picked up after breakfast and were taken out of town to their organic farm. On the way, we stopped at a local market for lessons about what rice to buy, as well as options that were available at the market; you could, for example, buy pre-fab curry paste if you wanted to cheat. It was fun to wander around the food market and see locals doing their daily business.
Once we arrived at the farm, we toured the gardens to select herbs and seasoning for our cooking. Our teacher was amazing and gave us a background on each plant we were using, as well as possible substitutes that would likely be easier to find for us back home.
The class itself was so well run and organized. We prepared our curry paste; then made a soup as an appetizer. Mark made his favorite Tom Yum and I made Thai vegetable soup. Both were so tasty! After our soup break, we turned our curry paste into Thai curries. We let them sit and chopped our veggies and made Thai stir fries. Mark made Chicken Cashew Nut and I made Sweet and Sour chicken. With these 2 dishes ready to go, we sat down with the rest of our class for a feast. Everything tasted SO good! We were both impressed with our abilities! And our class group of 9; were great. We sat eating, talking, and trading travel stories with everyone!
After our lunch break, we made a quick and easy dessert (mango sticky rice; where have you been all my life?!). After devouring this treat, we made our last dishes (pad thai and spring rolls), which she mercifully allowed us to take home with us. I was so full and so happy; I didn't know whether I'd ever want to eat again. They gave us each a recipe book to take home with us and we packed them up with our leftovers and were taken back to the city. It was such a fun day, and even though it was still quite hot on the farm, the day flew by and we were back, stuffed, in the city before we knew it.
After logging in some much-needed pool time, we decided to walk again to the night Bazaar in search of some ice cream. We had been too full to even consider dinner, but had eaten our pad thai and spring rolls just because they were there and so tasty.
During the day at the cooking school, I had learned a new saying from one of our classmates; T.I.T. - This Is Thailand. Walking back from the market through a bar area I can only describe as 'dodgy', I learned first- hand what this means. We walked by a scandalously dressed girl, who was most likely a ladyboy prostitute. As I was beside her, she whispered in a raspy voice, "Give it to me". Yep, This Is Thailand.
Wednesday morning, we headed out to run some errands. We booked to go to the Elephant Nature Park for Thursday, and we booked a night bus back to Bangkok for the 1st of April. Tough day, I know. We had some chill time after lunch and headed to a yoga/meditation class for 6pm. It was meant to be a Hatha (relaxation) yoga class, but definitely felt more like hot yoga. The room was like a sauna and the fans did little to circulate the air. But all in all, this added to the relaxation and made stretching easier. I was pretty proud of Mark for sitting his first official yoga class, but I'm pretty sure he even enjoyed it!
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