It's my last night in Chiang Mai and a few days until my next blog - for sure - as i'm flying first thing in the morning to Koh Samui, on route for the full moon party. I was going to go overland but it takes a full day, it's a hassle and i'll be knackered for the party hence i've treated myself and booked a couple of days into a beach front hotel.

This will be a short blog about my Thai cooking class but continuing in the style of the rest of my blogs i will start with the night before (hence the photo) .......

I met up with the London boys (Ross, Simo & Beaty) for a few beers in the hostal bar (bmp resident) , it's a chilled out place, the foods excellent and cheap, it's a euro for a Thai dish - can't go wrong there. Ally joined us, she's a good laugh and i'm sure she won't mind me saying she's one of the boys (in a good way), she likes her ale!. I was responsible for picking the drinking venues, armed with info from the lonely planet - they didn't let us down. The tuk tuk took us to a reggae bar in music street - a fab live band, cheap booze and a cracking atmosphere which we soaked up. From here on, being a bit jolly, all the tuk tuk rides (and there are numerous) were bordering on madness and dangerous (Ross, don't know how he didn't lose his head, Beaty at the steering wheel and Ally as the 5th passenger hanging on for dear life). We kept getting taken to dodgy bars as Beaty wasn't in control of directions in the front but we soon refused to get out to p-ss the drivers off. 2nd bar was the Riverside, great band again, bottle of Sam Song and an arm wrestling competition (i am the champ, always quit at the top!), Ross (being the biggest by far) gets immensly p-ssed off at getting beat and the lads give him grief (Simo, leave it out). Bubbles slipped into the route for some dance before the clubbing at Slinkys. At top night out.

So back to the cooking, as you can see after 4 hours sleep and numerous amounts of alcohol i'm not at my best.

Can thoroughly recommend the Baan Thai course, it's right by the local market in the centre of town, which is where we head first thing to buy fresh ingredients and learn about the local produce. Each of us, there were 7 in total (including Rob who was a hungover as me) picked 6 courses. Basically we spent all day preparing our meals and scoffing the lot, i was full to the brim at the end. We even made our our curry paste using eight ingredients smashed together with a pestal & mortar. Didn't realise cooking Thai would be so simple, yet tasty, and you get a free cooking book thrown in for good measure.

Well that's it folks......short and sweet (makes a change!)