Chiang Mai, Thailand

We spent most of our time in Chiang Mai with Jen and Matt and had a great time. The vibe of the city is very fun, and there's plenty of fun things going on, but it's also very touristy. It seems everyone has heard of how great Chiang Mai is, so of course every one was there. In fact, Zac and I ran into his teacher and a fellow co-worker on the street! Point in my fact, as Zac would say.

THINGS WE DID:

A Thai massage. 

Thai massages are amazing. The masseuses seem to use every point of their own bodies throughout the massage, using their knees and elbows to dig into your muscles and then bending their bodies in order to bend your own as they stretch you out. As Zac experienced his head massage, he exclaimed, "I love you, mom!" much to everyone's amusement. However, almost 30 minutes later I looked over to see Zac sitting ramrod straight with tears brimming in his eyes. Those ladies are tough! Zac's extreme responses pretty much matched my own. It was amazing and excruciating, depending on what moment we're talking about.

Ready for our massage!

Anybody know how to rotate pictures on a blog??

A Thai Food Cooking Lesson.

This was super fun and I'm so glad we did a cooking class in Thailand because this is where we found our favourite foods. We spent a day cooking, and by the end of it, we were both stuffed and exhausted.

Isn't the apron cute? Alas, I was not allowed to take it home :(

Being Chefs for the Day.

Zac's eyes would glaze over during the actual lesson before we cooked each dish, and then he would cook up some delicious dishes (sometimes with a little help).  

Enjoying the finished product

Visiting Tigers    

When Jen and Matt left, Zac and I decided to hang with some wild animals!

First we went to Tiger Kingdom, taking a tuk tuk for the first time. We loved it, and I felt good about being scammed only minimally. Because of Zac's age, we were only able to actually meet and touch the smallest of tigers, 6 months old or younger. That was fine with me! Basically, the place was like a zoo, so after we met the little guys we walked around to see the other tigers. They definitely were not as well taken care of as in the Toronto Zoo.

Holding hands/paws

This one was feisty! We had fun playing with her

Zac got a chance to feed this little one

Going in for some cuddles

Hanging with Elephants

The next day was one that Zac and I had been looking forward to for some time. We had a day scheduled to ride elephants bareback (which is much kinder than riding them on seats) on a trek, and then go splashing with them in the water. We loved it.

Zac meets the oldest elephant at the Mahout Course

As for the ride itself, it was certainly very bumpy and sometimes nerve-racking (like when Zac's baby elephant decided he was hungry and wandered to the edge of a cliff to munch, while he sat there facing down the edge, terrified). 

When we met the elephants, we fed them fruit and were most amused by their fun slimy trunks, which suctioned at your hand when you had food. What a funny feeling! 

We also loved bathing the elephants, and ended up getting into a water fight in the river. Following that we had a chance to get elephant kisses! That was my favourite part.

Bath time!

Such beautiful creatures!

Chiang Mai was a fantastic start to our 5 week vacation!

Food in Thailand = Sooo Good!

So, to share details of our 5 week vacation in South East Asia, I'm going to do a post on each place we stopped. Even more exciting - I learned how to add pictures to this blog! Yay! So, in honour of all the food pictures we took, I decided to begin with the food we are missing right now. Yum, yum.

To start off, Thailand was amazing and out of the three countries we visited in 5 weeks, it was our favourite in many ways. THE FOOD IS SO GOOD!

Our Top 5 *drum roll please*

5. Tom Yum Soup. This is a sweet and sour soup that I didn't originally love but it has a unique taste and Zac really enjoys it and insists it stay on the list.

PS We made this in our cooking class!

4. Yellow Noodle Soup with Pork (not the official name). We had this yummy soup at various food stalls.

3. Tom Kha Kai (Chicken in Coconut Soup). Zac and I debate that this belongs at #3. Sorry Zac.

SO GOOD.

2. Pad Thai. So delicious. We mainly had it with shrimp or chicken.

Zac's first taste of Pad Thai from a street vendor

1. Green Curry Chicken. I couldn't even tell you how many times I had this.

Zac and I made these in our cooking class. Mine is on the left, and was WAY too spicy. Zac's was just right.

Papaya salad also gets a special mention. Yum! We also loved the fish cakes. 

Cooking Fish Cakes.

Of course, dessert is a separate matter and we had two absolute favourites  One is banana and nutella rottee, which we found at various food stalls in Chiang Mai and Koh Tao. Rotee was available in many varieties and with many different types of fruit, but we only tried the one version, many times. The other hit was Mango Sticky Rice. I'm salivating right now as I tell you about it. It's pretty self explanatory, but you just can't imagine how delicious the sweet rice and fresh mango is, drizzled with condensed milk. Love love love love love. Best of all, the recipe is in our cook book, so we will be making some soon. Stay tuned!

It looks exactly as it tastes. YUM!!!

          

Zac and Jen discovering Rotee for the first time. Ah-maze-ing.

Mango Sticky Rice

Also, we couldn't get enough of the shakes, typically $1 Canadian or even less. We often got coconut, mango, pineapple, banana, or a mixture of all three.

Jen, Zac and  Matt. We first discovered the shakes at this stall in Chiang Mai. 

This post was way more fun to make than my last ones, thanks to Jen and all the countless blogs I checked out before our trip.  Kindof like scrap booking online. I'm going to do it again!