Here are some of my adventures that I went on with the Savory Spoon culinary tour this past week:

Meditation and Tea-Tasting: We walked over cobble stone pathways and crossed over creeks after a wiggly drive in the van up the mountain to finally reach the tea plantation. Once we reached our destination, there was no city noise. All you could hear was the running creek, birds flying overhead, and the friendly cat purring as he warmed himself in the sun. We were all welcomed into one of the buildings to try some of their teas. As the first group sipped and tasted, I waited by sitting in a huge picture window overlooking the mountain slope and the green tea bushes growing perfectly in a row. The tea plantation is also a getaway resort for those who want to relax and meditate, and while I was waiting for them, I did just that. After our second group sipped on two different types of teas and nibbled on dried strawberries, many of us were up for a hike up the mountain to see the waterfall. (From personal expereince, black cute flats are not recommended to make this journey, unless you want to look cute doing it!) It was absolutely gorgeous and well worth the trek up to see it.

Training birds to catch your next meal: Last Sunday I jumped on a fun morning excursion with the culinary tour. It took us two horse carts and three bicycles to make sure that everyone got to our destination. Once we arrived, we were at the edge of the lake and the men and women who greeted us were dressed in traditional Bai outfits. The bike riding group got a little loast, so we had enough time to look around at the tents that were filled with batik cloth, straw hats, linen shirts, and dried fruit. We started to hear drums and music fire up, so we all went to look what was happening. In colorful and glimmering Bai outfits were women and men dancing in a circle. We were all taking pictures of the group, but that didn't last too long because they grabbed some of our hands to join the circle. Guess who hopped in willingly? Yes, it was me. How did you know? ha It was so much fun dancing in the circle and kicking our legs to the drum beat (I hope I didn't hurt anyone, because I kept on kicking in the wrong direction...nailing the women in their ankles! haha opps!)
Once everyone arrived, it was time to climb into our wooden boats and row into the lake to watch the main event. For over hundreds of years, people in this region have been using cormorants to dive down and catch their fish. Three wooden tour boats followed a man in his metal boat out into the lake. Perched on both sides of his boat were about 15 cormorants ready to start diving! As the birds started diving under water, the man started yelling to them in the Bai language, telling them to dive. He would hit the sides of the metal boat while they were underneath the water so they could follow him around the lake. Michael Thomas was in our boat, so that always means at one point or another we were highly entertained by this jokester! He made sure that our boat placed bets on, which bird would catch the other fish. (Of course, our boat won with the winning bird...or so we say!) Once a bird catches a fish, the man paddles as first as he can over to the bird before eats the entire fish. He scoops up the bird in long net and brings him on the boat. Once the fish is out of his mouth, the bird has a snack and is able to take a rest on the boat until he's pushed back into the water to dive for some more fish. We probably saw the fisherman gather up around five large fish until it was time to go in and have lunch by the shore. The man was like the Pied Pipper, whenever he called in his birds by hitting the sides of the boat or yelling to them, they followed him around the lake and even jumped back in the boat when it was time to take a rest. Another attraction near the boats was to make friends with a cormorant by having it sit on your arm or head. My little guy sat on my arm and flapped it's wings when I moved my arm up and down! Don't worry, there are plenty of pictures showing me half screaming/half laughing at the little cormorant on my arm!

Tiny Roses from Wal-Mart:

One of the unique food specialities of the area is rose petal jam. Jeanee bought bags full of miniture rose buds from the market at Wal-Mart. Who knew you could buy such things at a Wal-Mart?! We set up a large table in the dining room to start separating the petals from their base...it sounds a lot easier than it really is. Yet, once we got the hang of it, the process became enjoyable. We were laughing and sharing stories. Everyone kept on commenting how our rose petal gathering was like a quilting bee. After about an hour of taking apart the roses, our fingers were slightly stained to a pinkish color and smelled sweet.