Harriet's birthday treat... a Thai cooking course!!!

Yesterday, for H's birthday, Sylv 'treated' her to a cooking course (she's been moaning about missing cooking for months..) on an organic farm just outside Chang Mai.

A rare day out, it was really nice to learn about all the various types of rice and other ingredients at the market, we got the chance to ask what was what and find out that the big grey lumps aren't flavoured tofu as thought, but congealed chicken blood... mmmmmmmm, saved from a horrible mistake!

Then, on the farm, we went to pick the herbs, roots and spices we would need like Thai parsley (persil), coriander, ginger and Thai ginger, ginseng, lemongrass, chilli, kaffir lime... such smells :o)

Then is was 4 hours solid graft... 5 dishes in total including a curry, a soup and a stir-fry.... tasting... then noodles and spring rolls and a dessert (packed up in doggy bags as we were about to pop!).

Cute steamer for sticky rice.

Chopping? what chopping?! Ingredients for a Thai soup and for a Pad Thai.

Turning up the gas! And "c'est parti mon kiki"!

The wok mistress, making a nice stir-fry

... and spring rolls

... and some pudding - pumpink in coconut milk

Tasting...

Doggy bags for dinner.... looking like the professionals in the street, everything in perfectly packed plastic!

A final picture for Sylv's fashion competition: Harriet in her organic farm cooking class outfit with our dinner...

food and more food... Thailand

As our gastro-cyclo-tour continues in Laos, I thought I'd better post this one on the Thai delicacies, before they are forgotten for the tastes of Laos....

We appear to be to only vegetarian cyclists in SE Asia who are gaining weight... possibly due to the numerous days off, possibly also because we're finding it hard not to try everything we see that looks interesting and.. or tasty!



We're pretty much hooked on sticky rice for our pre-ride breakfast - it comes in bamboo tubes and has little beans in it...

Brunch is usually pad pak... stir fried vegetables with rice..... here's one of the prettier ones!

There are lots of desserts to try... usually oddly un-sweetened (all the savoury food comes with a generous dose of sugar!)... and we usually can't work out quite what's inside... these were some sort of pumpkin souflees and some gooey rice cakes

these are mung beans in syrup (also available, red kidney beans, tapioca, red rice...) looks weird, tastes good, a bit like the sweet caramelised onion cake we tried! Note the plastic bag - all food in Thailand comes in a plastic bag... salads, sauces, rice, pork dust... everything that's anything is dressed in plastic and a rubber band

Sylv's feasting on the Papaya still

And we tried these little eggs crepes one night... just the once though!

Thai rice cakes are fried and come with a swirl of sugar on the top... light enough to carry on the bikes to keep us going and a bit more intersting than rice cakes at home

We didn't start on this lot... just admired the crystalised fruits from afar - better not to risk liking some things, and the fresh fruit is so lovely here!

Green coconuts are a regular... iced, like all good Thai drinks

We're hunting down the vegetarian restaurants where we can find them.... small quiet canteens run by especially nice people who create non-meat dishes from copious amounts of tofu and soya meat early in the morning and close by 3pm! They're usually near the town's hospital... not sure why...

There's meat on offer everywhere in Thailand and as we ride along it's often a bit like riding through a big communal barbecue with things on sticks roasting all over the place. So far so good though, and the cycling shorts still fit ;o)

Fashion

We wanted to share with you how we look on this trip, the sort of clothes we are wearing, how fashionable we are. So here are a few pictures.

First the cow-girl look adapted for cycling, with the shirt providing shade to the neck area and the arms. Sleeves can be folded up in early mornings when the sun is not too strong. The orange bandana is an optional extra for added style.

Next, the 'sun-sentivive-skin' outfit, perfect for the midday sun, complete with removable yellow sleeves.

More rencently, as a consequence of moving up North, we've seen the 'sleeping gear on a cold train', a special layered outfit, consisting of vest top, t-shirt, jumper, scarf, bathing skirt (for H) and sarong. The ideal outfit would also consist of sandals and socks, as seen before on Sylv.

And earlier, we also had the ashram look, uniquely worn by Harriet.

A day in the life....

And yes, before we set up the Anorak-ometre on the blog, we'll test the waters with a day in the life of some mad farangs cycling round Thailand...

Any good trip starts with good planning. Harriet surprisingly had the map holder installed on her bike and has been dubbed the provisional Queen of Maps pending confirmation on arrival in Hanoi.



A typical day of cycling will starts with an early wake-up at around 5.30am. Getting ready, packing all our 8 panniers and having a light breakfast of fruits and rice cakes (or whatever nice snack we found at the market the day before) means we're out on the road just after sunrise!



A market and Sylv having papaya for breakfast (Harriet eats a surprising number of bananas.. the tastier of two evils!)

When we can, there's a stop at the temple - here's Sylv plying Ganesh with gold and hoping he'll remove obstacles on our journey.


Then it's pretty much on the road until we hit our destination, or somewhere else that looks interesting and has a hotel...



There are regular water and 'comfort' breaks - leg stretching, bum rubbing etc.. and a longer one (where we get to sit down!) at about 9-10am for a big breakfast, often rice and vegetables or noodles as we get to grips with the Thai for vegetarian and 'vegetables only please'.


All being well we arrive somewhere before midday and look for an hotel. This one was a great found: an unpromising entrance gave way to a lush resort, hidden behind the motorway, where we had our own bungalow with terrasse and a massive swimming-pool!

When the roads look too big or busy, we can hop on the train. Thai Trains are fab - we buy a ticket for the bikes (forms in triplicate and fond memories of India!) and then the bikes are taken to the luxury goods carriage and meet us on the platform on arrival (even on the train where we suddenly realised the door at the front of the carridge looked out directly onto the tracks and the engine was nowhere to be seen - slight concern from other passengers but nothing near panic.... zen Thailand).

So far so good - we hit the road tomorrow for the unknown and un-blogged back hills of Chang Mai and work our way down (in theory!) to Sukothai.... farewell Starbucks and Boots, sawadhi khaa hand gestures, smiles and shrimp dust in your dinner!

the bicycles are ready!

This is Thailand: they are so organised here that they have put little signs in our hotel to ask people to get ready for the lift. And as you can see the lifts are quite sensitive here...

We spent yesterday opening the big cardboard boxes and putting together our yellow bicycles in front of the guesthouse. We were interupted half way through by a thunderstorm and sat down for a lovely chat with Bruno and Annick, experienced touring cyclists (http://www.roulmaloute.com/). So nice to meet fellow cyclists in the same hotel.

And all went well on the assembly line, as you can see on the pictures of delighted Harriet and Sylv. lready, we've attracted interest: some of the hotel's staff asked us questions and smiled a lot.

Next step was fitting all our things in the paniers. And that went well too, we even have some spare space, maybe for some nice food?

We went for a little ride around Bangkok today to test things out, adjust saddles and handlebars, etc. Such a nice feeling to be on a bike, seeing so much more than on a bus or in a car and stopping wherever we felt like it, at the market to buy some fresh fruit or some sleeves?!? Yes this is Harriet's latest purchase: a pair of sleeves that she can wear while cycling to procted her skin from the sun. Quite fashionable here in Thailand. They look a bit like this:

Let us know if you'd like some for Christmas.

We're off tomorrow, heading North...

Bangkok!

Considering Sylv's previous bad luck with travels, the flight from Frankfurt to Bangkok went surprisingly well.

The bikes, nicely packaged in cardboard boxes by Sylv's dad, were taken away at the airport by this lovely German man with lightening shoes.

Sylv, minimising luggage, was wearing her best fashionable look of sandals and socks and matching yoga trousers. She received many envious looks from the other travellers on the plane, understandably.

But best of all, ALL her luggage and the bicycles arrived safely in Bangkok on the same plane as her!!
This is how amazed Harriet was when she saw me arrive at Bangkok's airport with my over-loaded trolley...


The bikes were then secured on the roof of a taxi and off we went to our guesthouse.


Very happy to be together again and chattering away sharing our very different experiences of the last month.

Thailand was a BIG change. We were told it would feel like a holiday after so long exploring India and it's a very 'western' asian model we've met here...
Our first impressions of Thailand are: how clean it is, how nice Thai people are, how fab the food is and how like Canary Wharf Bangkok is! There aere still loads ofstreet vendors and food stalls, they just share the city with huge modern shopping malls. Here are a few pictures of our first few days in Bangkok.

Wonderful fruit stalls with Harriet eating the flesh of a green coconut. The red fruit at the front is a dragon fruit.

Lovely food on display on street stalls.



Chinatown in Bangkok.


And Sylv looking well impressed with the huge multiplex cinema in the very huge shopping mall on Siam square - rather a scary experience due to the scale of the place, but we got to see an intersting Belgian film about a girl coming back from travels in.... Thailand!

We are getting organised. We got some good maps and Sylvia has acquired a Yoga mat since she now has a private teacher. Yoga will balance out our cycling very well - work on the hamstrings and calm the nerves...

We should be moving on from Bangkok tomorrow (Sunday) and will be back on the blog next week.


A final photo of the Bangkok riverside at 6pm in the evening: first everyone stands up at 6pm on the dot for the national anthem and then, guess what these ladies are doing? Aerobics in the sunset led by a rather dynamic young gym instructor with a headset and LOUD speakers... pity we haven't got our trainers!