Thai Curry Anyone?

Took the  night train out of Bangkok towards Chiang Mai towards the north of Thailand.   Another great experience!   At the station, we all bought food from the many food-stalls on the station concourse (cheaper than the train food, we were told), and then sat on the tiled concourse for an hour being entertained by loud pop music and a group of young mainly female dancers, who burst out from nowhere and kept us all spell-bound for 20 minutes or so.   A bit disappointing, though, when we learned from our guide that they were advertising a particular brand of detergent!

The bunk-beds on the train (transformed from standard seating by a mighty hefty Thai woman who took no nonsense from anyone!) were very comfortable.   Each pair of bunk-beds was separated from the long corridors only by some blue damask curtains, and we all had to sleep hugging our valuables, as there were a number of stops en route to collect new passengers while we were sleeping.   The train, though, was incredibly slow (not sure if it ever travelled more than 30 mph), and there were times when I wondered if one of the wheels was actually square, so 'lumpy' was our journey at times.   Andy slept better than I did - no doubt helped by some Chang (elephant) beer before bed-time - mainly because the occasional lurching as we took right or left bends in the track seemed to bring back the vertigo attack I'd only just been seen the back of a couple of days beforehand.

After almost 16 hours (much longer than anticipated), we arrived in Chiang Mai at about 8.30 in the morning, having seen several beautifully-kept hill-stations in the early=morning run-up to the town, many with beautiful gardens and even picnic areas.

After a quick shower and change at our hotel, Andy took off with his camera to explore Chiang Mai - less hectic than Bangkok, more Chinese-influenced, but geared to the back-packer/tourist trade (all-day breakfasts, KFCs, Starbucks, Pizza Hut), though with an interesting old-town whose ancient city walls are still partly intact, and he apparently found a really good Chinese restaurant for lunch.   Meanwhile, I took off on a tuk-tuk with 3 other group members for a morning's Thai cookery class.   This was slightly out of town, in a lush, green setting overlooking green rice fields and mountains in the distance, and with a beautifully-kept vegetable and herb garden by the semi-outdoor cooking area.  On the way there, we'd stopped with our cookery teacher at a local Thai market, where she showed us different varieties of rice and their varied uses, about 8 different types of aubergine, including some small green ones which looked just like slightly large peas, lots of different herbs, vegetables, fruits, meat and fish.   The whole set-up was very professionally done, with 8 individual preparation/cooking areas, and a demonstration cooking area in the front of the semi-outdoor hall, complete with angled mirror above the head of the lecturer, so that we could see what was happening in the pans/wok as she spoke and cooked.   We learned how to prepare and cook three different dishes - fish soup, sweet and sour vegetables, and a green chicken curry, and then sat down together at the end of the morning to eat what we had cooked.  Delicious!
In the afternoon, we went by mini-bus up to a mountain-top Wat (Buddhist temple) to witness a ceremony dedicated to the quarter-moon.   Many saffron-robed monks and white-robed nuns walked slowly, continuously chanting, three times around a gold-encrusted Buddha.   At the suggestion of our guide, Andy and I joined a number of followers who knelt before a monk to be 'blessed' (is this the right word, Chris?) with water, and to have a small string-like bracelet attached to our wrists (right wrist for men, left for women).   Women have to kneel behind the men, and everyone must sit with their feet pointing away from the monk, mermaid-style, as a mark of respect.   The head is regarded as sacred, but the feet, which touch the earth, soil and all that that entails, are the opposite of that.

Then, back to the town centre for a trip round the night-market, and something to eat.   Off to Chiang Kong in northern Thailand tomorrow for our river crossing into Laos.

Entertainment at Bangkok Railway Station



The 'White Temple', North of Chaing Mai