Last day in North Thailand! We're off to the south tonight on a night bus and flight, really hoping the weather improves as it's monsoon season and we've had a lot of heavy rain in the north. For our last day Katie and I did a cooking course. Meg didn't fancy it so we left as quietly as possible at about 7.50, and we're picked up around 8.20.
After a drive of around 20 minutes we arrived at a local food market and were shown the different vegetables used in Thai cooking and given some time to look around which was cool, and I got some nut brittle and fresh lychees to try. We then continued onto the farm where we were spending the day cooking and met the rest of our group doing the half day course with us.
We were allowed to choose what to make from a selection of stir fries, curries and soup. After choosing we headed out to the farm's garden and looked around at the different vegetables growing. It was interesting to see how different they are to at home, as well as see things like bananas and mushrooms growing. However all this talk of food was making me hungry and I was relieved when we soon began cooking.
They were happy to make everything vegan for me which was a blessing as I'd forgotten to mention it when booking. Forunately the prominence of coconut milk and vegetarian food in Thai cuisine made it easy to adapt; using mushroom and soy sauce in place of fish and oyster. The first thing we made as a group was spring rolls, and it was surprisingly easy to fold the paper neatly to assemble them. Before deep frying we made our stir fry. I opted for a cashew one and katie pad thai, and I swapped the chicken for tofu. It was so quick to cook, and after deep-frying the spring rolls being loaded with rice we had our first course. Without sounding too cocky it was delicious!
Next we made our soup and curry. We assembled the ingredients for the curry paste, I made a massaman, which included cloves, chilli, basil, garlic, salt and some other things, and we used a ((pestle and mortar)) to crush them down to a fine paste. It was hard work but definitely worth it. We then began cooking, adding vegetables and meat to oil in our individual woks, adding the curry paste and coconut milk, and peanuts in the massaman, and cooking until it developed a thick texture. We followed this with our soup, made of a mixture of ingredients including vegetable stock, coconut milk, chilli, tofu etc.
Finally we ate this main course and it was amazing, but sooo filling after all the food we'd had around an hour before. We also received a recipe book of all the dishes, including the desserts included in the full day course, to try at home. We headed back to the hostel around 1.40pm, arriving around half past 2. We met meg who had had a quiet morning and spent an hour or so packing our bags ready to take on the night bus later. We then ventured into town so she could get an early dinner (katie and I were still full) and went to a restaurant where we had drinks, and I was given a free coconut after a lot of confusion attempting to get a drink which was so kind of the restaurant owners!
By the time we walked back to the hostel it was after 5 and we got our bags ready to get a grab to the bus station. Suddenly a woman appeared clutching Katie's anorak which she'd left at the cooking class which they brought on their way back from the full day course! We then got a grab to the bus station, collected our tickets and boarded. We'd reserved the front row, which was an excellent choice as we got loads of leg room (and an excellent view of the strange tv show which was playing). We were brought round some snacks, water and a blanket, and before long I'd fallen asleep (thank god!)
Laura x
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