Today after a not-so-early night of looking at jungle trek photos, washing obsessively to get rid of the jungle smell and just generally relaxing, we got up very early ready for our Thai cooking course.
We were picked up at 8.30 and taken to a local market in order to look at and learn about the Thai grown local meat, vegetables, herbs, sauces and powders that we would be using in our cooking.
After this we walked a short way to the local cooking school and we definitely knew the ingredients we’d be cooking with we’re fresh as the market was on our doorstep! Here we spent the morning learning about Thai cooking and learning ourselves how to make a chicken and coconut soup, Pad Thai, Thai Green Curry paste and the Thai Green Curry itself and finally, deep fried spring rolls!
While cooking each dish we learnt about the individual ingredients and tasted them throughout the process so that we could make the dish perfect for our own tastes. For example Juliet omitted any form of chillies where as the two German guys (who were trying to eat like the locals) added extra (and regretted it!)
All of the food we made was delicious (and this is not because I’m a good chef) it was purely down to the fresh produce, and easy but effective Thai recipes. We also got a recipe book at the end so we can recreate these dishes at home!
After we’d finished cooking school, feeling extremely full, we headed off down the street to find a massage parlour. On the way we came across a local festival, inside of a temple, with loud music and lots of food! We definitely couldn’t stomach any more food or even the thought of it so we listened to some music then headed to the massage shop and both had a very relaxing Thai Oil Massage.
As we are still exhausted from trekking we are definitely not brave enough for a traditional (and very rough) Thai Massage… Yet.. But we’re looking forward to getting one when we are more relaxed in the islands!
As for our oil massage, it definitely added to a relaxed day with the rest of the afternoon spent by the pool.