As we are progressively upgrading this website to include our daily journal, we ask you, dear reader, to bear with us as we strive to be creative and at the same time, accurate about the details of our wonderful trip and the wonderful friends that we made in that city. The saying is indeed true. There are no strangers, just friends that we have not met yet.

Thursday, 20th October 2005
Sabrina and I set off for the airport on a Tiger Airways flight TR128 and took off at 1500hrs Singapore time. We landed in Chiang Mai airport slightly more than two hours later. We immediately went out of the airport and proceeded to the immigration counter. These counters had little cameras on them and the cameras zoomed in on us as we presented our passports. After clearing customs, we found out that our hotel, the Royal Peninsula Hotel, had sent a driver for us. After reaching our hotel, we checked in and changed so that we could do a bit of shopping at the famous night bazaar. We took a tuk-tuk, which are Thai three-wheeled taxis and the driver at first wanted 80 baht (SGD$2.40). Sabrina managed to bargain it down to 30 baht but when we reached the night market, we felt so sorry for the driver that we paid him 40 baht! In any case, the first stall that we went to was a stall selling banana-filled roti-pratas. They were absolutely delicious. After that, Sabrina went on a rather mad buying spree and we started buying things like intricately carved soap-flowers, candle-stands and even bags! Everything down there was so inexpensive and nice that we just could not help ourselves. After purchasing half of Chiang Mai (not really for my shopping queen), we had to literally lug our fatigued bodies back to the hotel. Sabrina went for a shower while I was messing about with my laptop. Less than a minute, she came out screaming that the heater was not working. The hotel staff attempted to fix the heater but to no avail. Being true blue Singaporeans, we had to complain! The staff made amends by upgrading us to a deluxe room which was far bigger than the one we had before. This time, the heater was working fabulously and so was the air-conditioner. After a nice shower, feeling clean and refreshed, we tumbled into bed and slept like logs.

Friday, 21st October 2005
Today was a day with a difference. We were going to learn to cook Thai dishes, a cooking course run by this Thai couple Kwan and Yui aptly named A Lot Of Thai. We went down for breakfast pretty early in the morning. After a buffet breakfast in the hotel's only restaurant, Kwan came to pick us up in a 1973, baby blue Volkswagen combi van. Kwan is the husband of Yui, the cooking instructor. When we arrived at the house of Kwan and Yui, we were pleasantly surprised to see that it was set up with cooking stoves, utensils and the like. But what was the greatest gift was the mineral water dispenser there as we were pretty thirsty. Anyway, after a while, Yui came out and we were introduced to her. She told us a bit about herself and her family before we got up to speed on the cooking proper. Since it was a Thursday, we followed the menu that showed the dishes that were taught on Thursday. The first dish we made was fried brown rice. That was a relatively easy dish to make and after we cooked it, we ate it! After that it was time to prepare the second dish, which was papaya salad. Unfortunately, in our zeal to prepare it, we ended up pounding the papaya and the ingredients too vigorously. The papaya salad came out looking like anything but the picture in the cookbook! The next dish we prepared was stuffed cucumber stew. It was one of the best things we ever tasted and we were quite surprised at ourselves! The fourth dish we prepared was fried glass noodles. After that, we were feeling pretty full, as we had to eat each and every dish we cooked! In any case, there was a field trip of sorts by Yui as she took us to the local market, aptly named Nong Hoi market. There she was able to explain the many varieties of vegetables that she could buy there. At the market, Yui felt like having a cold tea but what was thought to be a cup of tea actually turned out to be a a very sweet milk tea, in a bag with a straw no less! Alan and myself, not to be outdone, got us a beverage as well and it was a kind of coconut and milk drink. After we came back from the market, Yui got us up to speed in pounding the ingredients to make paenang curry. So each armed with a mortar and pestle, we pounded many ingredients to make the curry paste. After making the paste, we had to had to cook coconut milk and then mix it with the pounded ingredients and made the curry. It was really delicious. The final dish we made that day was fried banana fritters. After that, we really felt that we were ready to burst...honestly! Yui and Kwan were such great hosts and we really felt sad to leave them. Kwan then gave us a ride back to the hotel but we felt so full and tired that we decided to call it a day and forget about dinner. A memorable day indeed!