Chiang Mai, Thailand: 11/17/15

After a 1.5 hour flight from Phuket to Chiang Mai, we were picked up and taken to a village in the rural part of Chiang Mai. We went to the home of the Raunkaew-Yanon family for an intimate and unique cooking experience. We were greeted by the head of the household with lemongrass welcome drinks, customary in Thailand (not necessarily lemongrass, but some type of drink offering), and given a detailed explanation of his family history and a tour of the houses on the property. His family has been there for 150 years, 3 generations, and their original teak houses still stood. He taught us about some Buddhist customs and beliefs - such as odd numbers are good luck and the stairs to a home and the head of a bed should always face east. 

We went into the house he actually lives in now, further back on the property, which was so interesting to be exposed to a real Thai home. 

He lead us out back into his "garden," which is actually 45,000 square meters of land containing thousands of plants, herbs, fruits, vegetables, and rice fields. It was absolutely incredible to see. He led us through part of it, pointing out all of the different plants and explaining the different benefits or uses for all of them. He was also picking herbs along the way to be used in our lunch. It was all so fascinating that this sprawling garden exists on what looks like a normal street in a village and is completely maintained by him and his family. 

We came back from the garden to begin preparing our meal. We chopped the vegetables and made a chili paste using mortar and pestle. 

We then cooked 5 dishes with various combinations of chicken, pork, eggplant, tomatoes, lemongrass, herbs, and chilies, and then clear broth tom yum soup (no milk, traditional for the northern region) and banana and fresh handmade coconut milk for dessert. We were able to customize the spice level since of course we can't tolerate nearly the level of heat the natives can. Everything was so fresh and delicious and authentic - and we ate until we were uncomfortable. 

We both loved this experience so much. The family was so welcoming, kind, informative, and interesting. It is so rare to go to a foreign country and actually be able to see how someone lives there. We of course acknowledge how rare it is to have this type of family history and massive property that they basically live off of and we know that most people in Thailand definitely do not live this way, but it was still extraordinary and special. 

That evening, after we checked into the Tamarind Village hotel, we took a walk to the "new city" part of town to check out the night market. Along the way, we must have seen at least 100 massage places, with Thai women sitting outside the shop trying to lure you in. Massages were so cheap, it actually felt wrong - a one hour massage runs you the equivalent of about $4- and these places were gross so I actually had no interest. There were also many bars lining the streets, all small with a couple of tables, and hooker-looking Thai women outside also trying to lure you in. People had told us that Chiang Mai was a cool city, and very inexpensive, but no one mentioned how kind of skeevy it was. We got to the night market area, which is several blocks lined with vendors selling various types of cheap crap and Thai craft items. It was cool to see, but neither of us where really into buying anything. We found the food court area which we hoped would be more like the one in Singapore, but it was rather disappointing. We got a few different items from different stalls and walked around a little more and then decided to call it a night.