Day 122! We thought today was going to be spent at the Doi Inthanon National Park. But with a classic backpacking last minute change of plans, we decided to stay in the city and do a cooking class instead! This turned out to be an amazing decision, but you’ll have to read through to see why (and also the amazing food we made).

I woke up this morning and realized I had a slight problem…

No, it didn’t have to do with my sickness. It wasn’t another allergic reaction either. My SIM card had run out of time! I guess it was able to go over 30 days slightly… but this signifies I’ve been in Thailand for over a month now!

I hopped out of bed and quickly made my way to 7-eleven to remedy this issue. And 199 Baht later, I had myself a working SIM card.

I got back to the hostel and finished getting ready for the morning along with my cousins.

We discussed our plans for the day and realized going to Doi Inthanon might not be as easy as we hoped. Motorbiking to this national park has been on my list of things to do. But since my cousins don’t have motorbiking experience (and have no strong desire to have some, I don’t blame them) we can’t just get a taxi there.

Everything at the national park is driving distance from each other, so we needed to book a tour. So after finding one, we booked it and decided what we wanted to do today. And we found a great idea… a cooking class! My cousins were very sweet and ended up paying for my ticket which I really appreciated. This class was amazing, but we’ll get to it later in the day!

It was already 11am and we were all hungry, so I found a restaurant around the corner that was cheap… and proved to be really good!

I started my day with a Panang curry and a watermelon, lemon, and honey shake (which I forgot to take a picture of).

This restaurant was the perfect start to the day. The lady running it was very sweet and the food was delicious. I asked her to make my meal spicy and she said “a little bit spicy?” And I responded, “a lot a bit spicy.” To which she gave me a skeptical eye and happily said okay! Sam and Ben followed suit and we received some very spicy food.

For me, it was the perfect balance of spice and flavor. And funny enough, this dish is a bit of a sneak peak into our cooking class later in the day.

After a very filling and sweaty meal, we went back to the hostel to digest and relax before setting out on a temple hopping adventure!

Chiang Mai is well know for all of its temples. In the old city and surrounding area there are over 300 temples! There aren’t 100 in the old city, but there’s enough to see them every couple hundred meters (200-300 feet for my American readers).

We stopped at two GORGEOUS temples before stumbling onto a thrift shop and looking around it for a bit. While walking around though, it started drizzling, which was a pleasant surprise. It cut down the smoke from the burning season and also dropped the temperature a bit too.

We were planning on going to more temples, but we got distracted by a beautiful coffee shop. Mina, Ben, and Sam were looking for a nice caffeinated beverage and we definitely found the right spot for it.

By the time we finished up at the coffee shop, it was time to head back to the hostel to get ready for our half day, afternoon cooking class.

On our way back we saw a gorgeous tree over one of the canals and walked into one more stunning temple to finish off our temple hopping excursion.

Just before 4pm, a van rolled up to our hostel and we all piled in!

We were the last to be picked up and on our 15 minute ride to the class, Mina and I chatted with two lovely travelers from China! They both had met while traveling around China and decided to try traveling together. We chatted about everything from the basic travel questions to deep life topics like having kids… it’s always interesting seeing where the conversation leads to!

They also had cameras and took pictures and videos of all of us throughout the entire class, they were super nice.

The van arrived at our destination and we got out to a gorgeous cooking school.

The cooking school is called Grandma’s Home Cooking School. It’s located just outside of Chiang Mai and from my first impression of the place, I was PUMPED to be there.

We were immediately met by our cooking instructor Joy, who was a very cute, funny, and outstanding chef.

She gave us the options for 4 different dishes:

• Tom Yum or Coconut Soup
• Green Curry, Red Curry, Khao Soi, or Panang Curry
• Pad Thai
• Mango Sticky Rice

They also served us tea and I had a Butterfly Pea Flower Tea. Which… I later found out was not butterfly pee like I had always thought it was. But was called butterfly pea because it is part of the pea family.

Which leads us to our first part of the class, the tour of the garden! We put on our aprons and some straw hats and set off to see the vegetables.

All of the ingredients used at this cooking school are sourced from their garden. Joy explained to us the benefits of some of the different plants and herbs, the different types of peppers, and how each of these ingredients play a role in the different Thai foods we were cooking today!

Mina took a lot of notes on what Joy was talking about, which I’d love to include, but they aren’t loading on my phone currently, so I’ll come back and add them later. I do remember Joy telling us about how Thai women use turmeric, butterfly pea, and some other plants as skin treatment.

They also had many Thai pepper plants growing as well! She asked if anyone liked spicy food and of course I chimed up to say I did. She then handed me what was allegedly the spiciest pepper in the garden… which wasn’t spicy at all and Joy was severely impressed because I didn’t find it spicy (I don’t think this one had many seeds in it). She then proceeded to continue to hand me different ones on the rest of the garden tour to try and some were very spicy.

Joy was such an amazing cooking instructor. She was hilarious, informative, and really great to talk to. She was super engaging and made the whole learning process very enjoyable!

We then got to go see the chicken coop! Now, these chickens weren’t the ones we’d be eating, but they were the ones providing the eggs we’d use for our pad Thai! We got to feed them peppers, which I actually had just learned in Laos that they can’t taste spicy or sweet foods. And… we also got to hold them, they were very friendly (gave me flashbacks to the duck stop in Phong Nha, Vietnam).

After a lot of new and useful information, it was time to cook! Or as Joy said, cook and eat and cook and eat.

Over the course of the next couple of hours we learned how to cook all of the dishes above (one for each of the categories). Joy would bring us to the front to show us what to do and the proper order and techniques. She would explain the importance of everything going in from the flavor of the different ingredients to the colors that it would make the food.

She would come around and help us, while also giving us funny remarks on how we were doing, telling us more spicy means more sexy, and just lighting up the mood the entire time! She is a fantastic chef and made all of the dishes look like a breeze.

We ground up our spices into curry paste with a mortar and pestle, chopped up our fresh vegetables, and even used a wok to properly make pad Thai! I may have gotten a bit carried away way with the theatrics…

After each dish was done, we’d sit as a group around the table and chat while we enjoyed our creations. I have to say, these 4 dishes were some of the best I’ve had in Thailand… and I got to be the one to make it!

On top of that, I’ve really missed cooking! This was the first meal I’ve had that I’ve cooked in 4 months. I’m looking forward to being able to cook for myself in Australia… but for now, I’m okay enjoying the wonderful SE Asian cuisine that I can buy for so cheap.

Here’s all of my creations in the end:

The 4 hour class flew by. Mina, Ben, Sam and I (along with the other five people in our class) THOROUGHLY enjoyed this cooking class. From start to finish, it was completely worth it. I’m sure there are other amazing cooking classes in Chiang Mai, but I’d highly recommend this one and specifically recommend asking for Joy as your instructor!

With absurdly full stomachs and feeling fulfilled, we piled back into the minivan and went back to our hostel.

The rest of the night was filled with relaxing, going to the convenience store for snacks for our adventure tomorrow, and then passing out because we have a very early morning!

Tomorrow we’re finally going to Doi Inthanon, something I’ve had on my list of Thailand to do’s since I planned this trip with Ben in 2020! My friends Joya and Miri are joining us as well as we set out on a 2 hour car ride to the highest point in all of Thailand!

See you then!

– Elie