Chiangmai and elephants

We have had quite an exciting past two days. Yesterday we walked around town checking out some temples and seeing some of Chiangmai.
At 420pm we had a Thai cooking course booked! We showed up and found out we would be making five different things. I was a little nervous since I'm not the best at multi tasking in the kitchen!
We started the course by looking in the garden they have in the back. We smelt several herbs and spices that we would be using in our Thai dishes. After this we walked down the street to check out a local market and work up an appetite.
We came back and started our cooking! We were all able to choose a curry, appetizer, soup, and noodle dish. The fifth thing we would make was our curry powder for our chosen curry.
We started out with noodle dishes. The girls made Pad Thai, I made makee sew which uses larger noodles, and Jason made a different dish with the large noodles as well. The prep process was much less stressful than I had anticipated. Our teacher was really helpful and guided us very well. We were in a group of ten people so she went through one dish at a time.
Once we finished one dish we went back to our table to eat it.
I must say everything was so delicious!! For an appetizer I made papaya salad, my soup was tom-young soup, and my curry was a delicious patang and chicken curry. It is red curry with peanuts smashed into it.
We loved it all and were glad to receive a cook book at the end of the night. I think my favorite was my curry and Niki's spring rolls!
I enjoyed the cooking course way more than I originally anticipated! I knew I would love eating it all but I enjoyed making it too!
When we were finished we waddled down the street to our guest house. We hung out in Michelle and Jason's room until bed time.
This morning we woke up early and were picked up from the guest house at seven to go to an elephant sanctuary. Today was such a cool experience! The sanctuary we chose was recommended by a friend. The elephants seem to be happy and well taken care of, though you never know what things are like behind the scenes. This place sounded like they cared about giving them as natural of a life as they could as domestic elephants. They don't teach them things like painting, football, basketball, or musical instruments like most other places, nor do they strap massive comfortable chairs on them for people to ride on.
Our experience here started with us learning about the sanctuary and where they purchase elephants etc. They try to rescue elephants from places that teach them unnatural things, force them to beg in the streets, or from abusive owners. They have many mahouts (elephant trainers/owners) who have sold their elephants to them, then gone to live and work in the camp we visited today.
After we talked we changed into some dorky jean outfits and headed over to get dirty playing with elephants! We fed them sugar cane and bananas until our large baskets were empty. They have thirteen elephants and they all eat from 200-300 kilos of food a day!! It was very cool but crazy weird being so close to such huge animals.
After feeding time we learned how to mount them because we would be going for a ride on them bareback. Once everyone had mounted and dismounted we moved on to moving forward, left and right, and stopping. After we mastered these techniques we set off on our ride. Everyone was two per elephant and we swapped turns being up front and behind. On the neck was much more comfortable. Riding bareback on the back of a massive elephant is a bit uncomfortable. They have such prickly sharp hair it almost hurts your legs. Being on the neck you still have prickly hair to deal with but you are on a more meaty part so your butt doesn't hurt! We walked for around an hour then headed straight into the bathing pool with our new friends. Once we were in the water we splashed buckets of water on them and scrubbed away while our tour guide snapped pictures for us. (sorry none on the iPhone so you will have to wait to see them). Once bath time was over it was time for the humans to scrub clean back at camp! The time with the elephants went by a little quicker than we would have liked but it was such a neat experience.
We arrived back at our guest house around three and sat at a cafe for a snack and wandered around. We were back to the house again at six for a briefing on our next adventure. Tomorrow morning we leave for a two day one night trek. It sounds like it will be very cool but tiring!
After the meeting we took a tuk tuk across town to the night market where we had dinner and looked around until it closed up at midnight. Then it was time for a ride back to the guest house, write the blog and now it is 1am and bedtime for me! Up at 7am to set out for the trek! I will post again when I can in a couple of days!