Day 13
Today I'm in: Chiang Mai, Thailand
Today started out rough and stayed rough. I expected a tough morning after staying out later than normal and drinking reasonably heavily in the tropical heat. True to form, I woke up with a splitting headache and a mouth full of cotton. The day before, I had made a Thai massage appointment for 10am, so I lurched through the streets of Chiang Mai to Lila, a massage clinic staffed by ex-convicts participating in a rehabilitation program. It sounds a little suspect, but there are multiple Lila outlets around the city and they had a lot of information about the difference they've made in the lives of all these former prisoners. They receive training in a marketable trade and can support their families again, which allows them to re-enter the community with more dignity than they might otherwise.
The lack of dignity on this particular morning was entirely mine. I had hoped the massage would help me feel better, and my masseuse went out of her way to be gentle once I told her I was having a tough morning. I bought a two-hour package that include a Thai herbal body scrub followed by a warm oil massage. The treatments themselves were great, but lying on the table with my pounding head pressed into a face ring quickly started to take its toll. What's more, I started to get queasy, too. After about 90 minutes I had to run to the bathroom and got sick, which meant I had to cut the massage a bit short.
I lurched back home and spent several hours drinking water, napping and getting sick. Despite drinking plenty of water and resting, things weren't improving - in fact, I started to get chills, ran out of breath and was sweating profusely. It was a really miserable couple of hours. I started to wonder if maybe this wasn't a combination of hangover and food poisoning, so I took some antibiotics. Within a few hours I started to feel better, and although I'm not at 100% yet, things are looking up again.
The quick recovery was good since tonight I was taking a cooking class at Basil Cookery. Boom, the cheerful head chef, picked me up at my hotel and drove me to the kitchen. We were cooking seven courses - an appetizer, a soup, a noodle dish, a stir fry, a curry paste, a curry dish, and a dessert - and for each one there were three dishes to choose from. There were just four of us there... Boom, me, and Tim and Nicole, a newly married from couple from Chicago, of all places.
We started off with a trip to a local market to review ingredients and go shopping. Boom pointed out how to identify ripe versus unripe vegetables, how to tell Thai ginger apart from regular ginger, and the difference between coconut cream, coconut milk and coconut water.
My first dish was pad see iew - stir-fried flat noodles with soy sauce, oyster sauce and vegetables. I was surprised that almost every dish we made got at least a teaspoon of brown sugar.
Next up was tom kaa kai (coconut soup with chicken, basil, tomatoes, lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves for flavor) and my personal favorite dish of the night, larb kai - a savory salad made from minced chicken, mint leaves, lime juice and shallots.
Homemade curry paste was next. I chose a green curry while Tim and Nicole made red panang curry. Pounding the paste - made from chiles, garlic, lemongrass, onions, ginger and a whole mess of spices - involved a mortar and pestle and a lot of sweaty work.
My finished curry product, served with rice and a side of stir-fried minced pork with holy basil.
Finally, for dessert, I made a black sticky rice pudding served in coconut milk. What really amazed me was how little time it took to make all of these dishes. Only the black sticky rice, which had to soak overnight, required more than 30 minutes of work. Granted, Boom and her assistant did some of the prep work (and all of the dishes!) but we did our own chopping, peeling, picking, etc. We finished the night with official graduation certificates and a cookbook with recipes of all the options, not just the stuff we cooked. I'm definitely going to try my hand at Thai cooking when I'm back in Chicago - we've got enough Asian supermarkets that finding ingredients shouldn't be too tough, and it's not nearly as intimidating as I thought it'd be. There are tons of cooking schools in Chiang Mai, but Basil Cookery was pretty great - no class has more than six people, so you get plenty of personal instruction.
Late tomorrow afternoon I'm off to Laos, but I've got all morning to finish sightseeing in Chiang Mai. There's still a lot more I want to see.
Today I'm in: Chiang Mai, Thailand
Today started out rough and stayed rough. I expected a tough morning after staying out later than normal and drinking reasonably heavily in the tropical heat. True to form, I woke up with a splitting headache and a mouth full of cotton. The day before, I had made a Thai massage appointment for 10am, so I lurched through the streets of Chiang Mai to Lila, a massage clinic staffed by ex-convicts participating in a rehabilitation program. It sounds a little suspect, but there are multiple Lila outlets around the city and they had a lot of information about the difference they've made in the lives of all these former prisoners. They receive training in a marketable trade and can support their families again, which allows them to re-enter the community with more dignity than they might otherwise.
The lack of dignity on this particular morning was entirely mine. I had hoped the massage would help me feel better, and my masseuse went out of her way to be gentle once I told her I was having a tough morning. I bought a two-hour package that include a Thai herbal body scrub followed by a warm oil massage. The treatments themselves were great, but lying on the table with my pounding head pressed into a face ring quickly started to take its toll. What's more, I started to get queasy, too. After about 90 minutes I had to run to the bathroom and got sick, which meant I had to cut the massage a bit short.
I lurched back home and spent several hours drinking water, napping and getting sick. Despite drinking plenty of water and resting, things weren't improving - in fact, I started to get chills, ran out of breath and was sweating profusely. It was a really miserable couple of hours. I started to wonder if maybe this wasn't a combination of hangover and food poisoning, so I took some antibiotics. Within a few hours I started to feel better, and although I'm not at 100% yet, things are looking up again.
The quick recovery was good since tonight I was taking a cooking class at Basil Cookery. Boom, the cheerful head chef, picked me up at my hotel and drove me to the kitchen. We were cooking seven courses - an appetizer, a soup, a noodle dish, a stir fry, a curry paste, a curry dish, and a dessert - and for each one there were three dishes to choose from. There were just four of us there... Boom, me, and Tim and Nicole, a newly married from couple from Chicago, of all places.
We started off with a trip to a local market to review ingredients and go shopping. Boom pointed out how to identify ripe versus unripe vegetables, how to tell Thai ginger apart from regular ginger, and the difference between coconut cream, coconut milk and coconut water. 
My first dish was pad see iew - stir-fried flat noodles with soy sauce, oyster sauce and vegetables. I was surprised that almost every dish we made got at least a teaspoon of brown sugar.
Next up was tom kaa kai (coconut soup with chicken, basil, tomatoes, lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves for flavor) and my personal favorite dish of the night, larb kai - a savory salad made from minced chicken, mint leaves, lime juice and shallots.
Homemade curry paste was next. I chose a green curry while Tim and Nicole made red panang curry. Pounding the paste - made from chiles, garlic, lemongrass, onions, ginger and a whole mess of spices - involved a mortar and pestle and a lot of sweaty work.
My finished curry product, served with rice and a side of stir-fried minced pork with holy basil. 
Finally, for dessert, I made a black sticky rice pudding served in coconut milk. What really amazed me was how little time it took to make all of these dishes. Only the black sticky rice, which had to soak overnight, required more than 30 minutes of work. Granted, Boom and her assistant did some of the prep work (and all of the dishes!) but we did our own chopping, peeling, picking, etc. We finished the night with official graduation certificates and a cookbook with recipes of all the options, not just the stuff we cooked. I'm definitely going to try my hand at Thai cooking when I'm back in Chicago - we've got enough Asian supermarkets that finding ingredients shouldn't be too tough, and it's not nearly as intimidating as I thought it'd be. There are tons of cooking schools in Chiang Mai, but Basil Cookery was pretty great - no class has more than six people, so you get plenty of personal instruction. Late tomorrow afternoon I'm off to Laos, but I've got all morning to finish sightseeing in Chiang Mai. There's still a lot more I want to see.
Sorry you got sick, but it sounds like you ended the day well!
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