Why You Should Take a Cooking Class When You Don’t Like Cooking

I don’t like cooking. It’s time-consuming and I don’t like cleaning up the mess when I’m done. Not to mention the risk in trying out a new dish. I’ve had hours and dollars wasted on food that turned out to be awful when I followed a recipe, but somewhere along the line, created culinary poo. Well, lucky for me, Thailand is very conducive to my distaste for it. I haven’t had to cook once since arriving here (well, except that one time I made scrambled eggs in Mae Wang).The food is so cheap at about $1 a meal, so Jack and I enjoy signature Thai dishes everyday. This leaves our most complicated meal preparation as cereal or toast. (Yes, be jealous.)

Teacher’s Day

Today was Teacher’s Day, not be confused with Wan Wai Kru. From what I could tell, teachers celebrated by kicking the students out of school, playing bocce ball, and drinking whiskey. Not too shabby.

New Year’s Doubler (the conclusion you’ve been waiting for)

After two nights home to refuel and get the laundry done, we started the second half of our vacation by heading to Nan, one of our favorite cities in Thailand (you can read about our last visit here). Because Nan is so far northeast, it is sort of an undiscovered gem inside the country. We took a LONG bus ride to the Nan bus station outside the city and walked to our guesthouse. We stayed at Nan Guesthouse, which was a good deal for the money, with a great location and a cafe with delicious breakfast right across the alley. We spent our first two days exploring the city, catching up on our internet surfing, and eating a lot of good food. We visited Poom 3, a nationally known restaurant with a famous chef/owner who appeared on a number of Thai TV shows. Sara ordered their signature dish, massaman curry, complete with apples, pineapple, and naan (in Nan!) It was so delicious, in fact, that she forgot to take a picture. We did find one in the paper though.

New Year’s Doubler (ok, half a doubler, but the rest is coming soon!)

As soon as the Christmas festivities at Sara's school were finished, we hit the road for the New Year's holiday. Sara had found us an amazing place to stay on Doi Inthanon in Chiang Mai called the Bamboo Hut. We caught a bus to Chiang Mai on the side of the road in Hang Chat and almost made it out of the city before the bus broke down. Luckily, the bus attendant had a backup plan: have everybody stand on the side of the road and hope someone came to our rescue. About a half hour later, a different, equally disheveled, twice as full bus rolled up and the crowd of refugees squeezed on board, bound for Chiang Mai. For real this time.

The owner of the Bamboo Hut (and their homestay), Nong, picked us up and we headed about an hour outside of Chiang Mai city. She dropped us off at a temple in the main town Mae Wang. It was here that we met Nong’s husband Koko, who would be our constant companion for the next two nights. His reliable old pickup truck just managed to climb the sheer cliff "road" that led up to the cabins, and I considered us lucky for surviving until Sara and I noticed hill tribe villagers riding their motorbikes up and down the mountain.