thursday 17th july - chaing mai arrived at the chaing mai hotel at 7am, and was pleased to find out that they had a swimming pool.picked up at 830 as we all booked onto a thai cookery class at the best school on the country apparently. first we went to a local market to pick up fresh ingredients, and so they could explain what all the ingredients were. the market was a bit gross they had fish stalls where they would chuck the fish on the floor and then wack them over the head top kill them...not for the animal lovers. cooking ..it was so much fun i know u all thinks it a strange thing for me to do but im glad i did. we cooked in outdoor kitchen each with our own unit, first they showed us in the classroom how to cook each dish before letting us loose! i will be cooking for u all when i get back im soo good it was yum! we made hot & sour tom yum prawn soup, green thai curry, pad thai noddles and steamed banana cake cooked in a banana leaf dish. bought an apron so that i look the part when i get home! and got a free cookbook. had a sleep in the afternoon and then all meet at five so that we could be briefed about the trek. then visited a local trekking shop in case we had forgotten anything. went for meal then markets...so many markets here, bought so much stuff, im really enjoying the bartering and getting some good deals, everyone gets me to barter for them! end of day xx