After Zoe (good friend and yoga teacher from the UK) mentioned Erich Schiffmann’s name to me when we were originally organising the USA part of our trip, it always stuck with me…’Make sure if we go to LA to do a yoga session with Erich Schiffmann‘. And so I looked into Erich and his goings on in the world and became very impressed. Upon the second time round for us to leave again on our travels I noticed that Erich had a 10 day yoga teacher training course starting on the 12 August and it was very convenient for us that flight prices from the UK drop on the 11th. So I checked to see if Dave would be up for coming out with me and staying in Venice whilst I would do the course and as soon as he said yes I paid my deposit.

In all honesty it was the best decision I have ever made. The group were just lovely and very welcoming and Erich Schiffmann is a truely captivating Yogi with SOOOO much love to give it is unreal. (I think I may have picked up a few Americanisms here!!) I have learned so much from Erich and others taking the course, it’s not only given me further motivation to one day teach Yoga but also to be creative in my approach and personal practice. Erich’s wife Leslie also took us for a few afternoons bringing in her experience in Vini-yoga and how to approach level one classes.

We covered so much in a short space of time my mind is still taking it all in, but I do feel very thankful to the whole experience and to have made such good friends along the way. Erich gives the best hugs going and I will definiltey be returning to this side of the Ocean again and again to work with him and join in with his Freedom Style Yoga.

Below are a few images taken while completing the course at Exhale in Venice, Los Angeles as well as a lovely social gathering towards the end of the course.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM & Olympus PEN EP-1, 17mm f/2.8 & 100mm f/2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

We hope you enjoyed attempting some of the previous recipes from our Yangshou Cooking experience, so following on from this we’ve decided to tempt you even further with another review of our second favourite cooking course undertaken whilst travelling in Asia.

Helen had previously experienced a Chiang Mai cookery school programme when visiting Thailand back in 2004. Her experience then was good and gave her a real taste for Thai food and cooking, she did find it very inspirational indeed. This time around, Dave having never visited Thailand before was keen to do a cooking class and Helen wanted to have another go too! This time though we were looking for a class that offered something different from the everyday schools in Chiang Mai, and we came across the Thai Farm Cooking School.

We chose this particular school because it is located around 17km outside of Chiang Mai on a beautiful farm where they grow their own vegetables, herbs and organic fresh ingredients to cook with. They have two kitchens prepared for groups to cook aswell as a lovely outside eating area. Go to their website and take a look for yourself!!

Our guide and chef Tommy had a good sense of humour and for his age was a very well accomplished chef and teacher. We chose a curry paste from a choice of red, green or yellow, we also picked a soup dish, a noodle dish and a dessert. There were 3 different dishes to choose from in each section so the choices were good.

We chose to cook different dishes so we could taste each others food. Like the Yangshou Cooking School we each had our own prep and cooking station and Tommy would demonstrate a dish and we would follow by cooking it, he gave us many tips on spice, sauces and flavour. Too much spice would equal sexy lips!!

We both love Thai food so this was never going to be a let down for us! But it was a great day, starting off with a market tour going through the ingredients used in Thai cooking and when we arrived at the farm we had a garden tour taking us through their organic vegetable patches.

We made our own curry pastes – Dave chose a red curry and Helen a yellow one. We cooked a noodle dish each and whilst Helen cooked the hot and sour Tom yam soup Dave cooked a chicken Tom Kaa Gai.  As there was ingredients left over for the spring rolls we even got to make a few of those too!  What we couldn’t eat we took away with us for dinner later on!

This wasn’t the cheapest option of doing a cooking class in Chiang Mai as this is sighted as one of the top activities to do in the area, but it was pretty good value for money and we enjoyed the location, the chef and our tour group were all lovely too!

For a full day class we paid 1850 Thai Baht each, which is considerably more than the 1000 baht offering on their website. This works out to be around £35, which when compared to the Yangshou cooking school is a hell of a lot more!! Cost of travelling in Thailand however is considerably more than China, so for those of you on a budget there may be other cooking schools in Chiang Mai that are more appealing!

So for your pleasure we have a few recipes below, let us know if you try them!

Yellow Curry with Chicken / Tofu for vegetarian option – serves 2

Curry paste:

3 red dried chilles (soak in cold water for 15 minutes before use)
1 tbsp of chopped shallots
1tsp of chopped galangal *
1 tbsp of chopped lemongrass
2 cloves chopped garlic
1/4 tsp roasted cumin seeds
1/4 tsp roasted coriander seeds
1 tsp chopped tumeric
1 tsp yellow curry powder
1 tsp chopped ginger

Other ingredients:

70 grams of sliced chicken / Tofu (vegetarian)
1 cup of coconut milk
1.5 cup of water
1 cup chopped potatoes
1/3 cup of sliced onions
1 stem of spring onion
1 tbsp of fish sauce or soy sauce
1 tsp of sugar
1/4 tsp of salt

For the curry paste:

Put the ingredients for the curry paste in the mortar. Pound with the pestle until everything is mixed and ground thoroughly.

(we were doing this for at least 10 minutes!)

For the curry:
Put half cup of coconut milk in a pot and heat until boiling. Add chicken or tofu and curry paste. Stir until almost done. Add water, onions, potatoes and the rest of the coconut milk. When the potatoes are soft season with fish sauce or soy sauce, sugar and salt. Add spring onions. Serve with rice.

You can try different vegetables with this curry, we’ve tried butternut squash, sweet potatoe and courgettes, anything that will absorb the spices and flavour nicely will work. A little hint with the rice – we love to add coconut cream, cardamon and star anise to add some aromatic flavours.

* you can pick up dried Galangal from alternative supermarkets such as asian, chinese or organic.

Fried Noodles – Pad Thai

This has to be one of those dishes everyone loves from Thailand! It’s always first on the list when we arrive! There are prawns in this photograph but the recipe below is vegetarian with tofu – if you want to add prawns then feel free to do so!

Ingredients – Serves 2

80 grams rice noodles
1 cup of bean sprouts
2 tbsp of tofu, cut into small pieces
1 egg
1 tbsp of chopped pickled white raddish
1 tbsp of crushed roasted peanuts
1/3 cup of ripe tamarind juice (or 2 tsp of white vinegar mixed with 3 tbsp of water)
1.5 tsp of sugar
1 tsp fish sauce or soya sauce
1 tsp of chopped Chinese leek or spring onion
1 tsp of dried shrimps
a pinch of chilli powder
3 tbsp of oil
a pinch of salt
3 cloves crushed garlic

Heat up the oil in the wok on medium heat. Place tofu and fry until crunchy. Then turn the heat down to low. Add garlic, pickled raddish, (dried or fresh shrimps optional), chilli powder and stir until fragrant. Add tamarind juice (or vinegar ) and noodles and turn the heat up to medium. Stir fry until the noodles are soft. Turn the heat down to low. Make place by moving the noodles to another side of the wok. Add the egg and scramble. Add fish sauce, sugar, salt, crushed peanuts, bean sprouts and Chinese leek and turn the heat up to high. Stir fry thoroughly until well mixed. Serve with a piece of lemon and fresh salad.

Something for the sweet toothed!

Mango with sticky rice – YUM!!!
Serves 1-2 so double your ingredients for this one!

1 cup of steamed sticky rice *
1/2 cup of coconut cream
1 ripe mango (peel, remove seed and slice)
1-2 tbsp of sugar
1/4 tsp salt

Put the coconut cream, sugar and salt in a pot. Heat until boiling. Turn the heat off. Add steamed sticky rice. Mix well together and let to cool. Serve with mango.

You can buy this dish on the streets as we did one day on our way to the train station. It’s a very sweet tasting dish but works so well with the mango.

* You can buy sticky rice online or at Asian and Chinese supermarkets. The best tips for steaming sticky rice is to soak it first in cold water for a minimum of 4 hours or even overnight. Afterwards wash the rice with fresh water at least two times. Put the sticky rice in a steamer and steam for about 30 minutes until the rice is sticky and soft. When the rice is cooked always keep it in a closed container to prevent it from drying out and becoming hard. If the rice cools you can always steam it again.

Ever so the relaxed Thai ways we love how ingredients are measured out in cups, and the old fashioned tablespoon measures! Cook things for about this or about that! Ha! but seriously the food will taste amazing! Let us know if you attempt to try any of these dishes and if you’re feeling brave you could share your photos online!

Enjoy!

On our last day in Chiang Mai we booked to do a Thai Massage course focusing on the back, back of the legs and shoulders. We loved it and felt that we learned so much as well as received a very good massage for most of the day!

Our teacher took it in turns to teach us each part of the massage working through a booklet we could take away with us. Each time she would demonstrate on one of us and then we would practice on each other so often we received the same thing twice! We thought this would be really useful for us when we move on as so many times we have wanted or craved a massage and given bits here and there without really knowing what we’re doing! Now we felt we would be able to do something with a little more purpose. Along with Thai massage techniques we picked up some stretching moves that work together with the massage. A full body massage often covers, hands, feet and face aswell as the rest of your body. It was also good to learn of the traditions of this massage.

We chose Namo for our massage course and they also offer half day to one week massage courses along with daily yoga drop in classes, they have good sized teaching and yoga rooms in a well-thought out space. The course cost 1100 baht each starting at 9am and finishing at 3pm. We had an hour for lunch which wasn’t included in the fee unfortunately but we did go to a great vegetarian place called Om pretty much opposite the Eastern gate on the inner wall side, it was so good we decided to go back there for dinner that night!

That same evening we took an overnight bus to Bangkok which left Chiang Mai at 7.30pm and we were really surprised to find that it wasn’t full, this mean’t we were able to spread out and have a double seat each. It was a very good journey with one stop, eventually arriving in Bangkok early at 5am. It only cost 300 Baht each with pick up – a bargain!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0, processed in Lightroom 3)

We started the day with our customary Luang Prabang breakfast; JoMa’s cinnamon and raisin bagel with jam, followed by oats, fruit and yoghurt. Our pick up was at 11.10am and off we went to the airport. The whole process was very smooth indeed and by 2.30pm we were in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Bliss.

A taxi took us from the airport to Julie’s guesthouse in the south-east area of the old town in Chiang Mai. They had a few rooms available and saving cash we opted for a triple for the night at 270 baht between the 3 of us. We spent that day sorting out things for the next few days of our trip with the most important on the list being a good cooking class. Helen has done the class in one of the many schools before and so we wanted to do one that was a little different. We booked a full day class for the 3rd with the Thai Farm Cooking School, costing us 1900 baht each, a little more pricey than some but with the experience of cooking at the farm and getting away from the city for the day. Other things we looked into were possible elephant sanctuary’s and buses to Pai. There are so many tours to choose from half the time it’s just a case of getting the price you want to pay for a tour that looks good value. The food choices in Chiang Mai are very good with a wide range of thai and international restaurants to choose from. We opted for a local cafe style restaurant for some long awaited authentic Pad Thai and Papaya salad.

We booked minivan tickets from Julie’s for 180 baht each to take us on the morning of the 4th so we had a few days to play in Chiang Mai before the next part of our adventures. We took in more temples, this time in Thai style design, and recognised some elements that have been taken into some of the temples we saw in Laos. We picked up a Thailand Lonely Planet second hand and paid more than we should have, only to realise this later on and we found a few useful camera accessory items from Paantip Plaza near to where the Night Bazaare starts from the east side. We explored the busy night bazaare and bargained for a fake north-face rucksack, hoping that it lasts! We asked at Julie’s about swapping to single rooms but they were very vague and we couldn’t help but think they had rooms available but were waiting for people booking treks and tours with them to use up the room allocation. This happens a lot in Chiang Mai.

The cooking class took place on the 3rd and we were picked up from Julie’s as part of the package. Our tour guide Tommy talked us through the day and explained that he would also be our chef for the day too. He was a real charmer with the ladies and had a good sense of humour to go with it. We started the tour by going to one of the markets a little out of town, we were really surprised by the organisation and cleanliness of the market. Tommy talked us through traditional Thai foods used on a regular basis, rice, sticky rice, fish sauce, coconut, curry pastes and so on. We then explored the market ourselves for a short while before continuing onto the farm. A couple on the tour bought some deep friend insects and frogs and managed to pass them around on the bus causing intrigue and disgust.

The farm is really nicely located around 45 minutes from Chiang Mai, we were introduced to the vegetable gardens and talked through the various herbs, fruits and vegetables growing there. Our first task was to make curry paste for our curry of choice, Dave chose green curry and Helen yellow curry. We bashed away with a mortar and pestle for around 10 minutes until all ingredients were nicely combined into a paste, some of which were chillies; fresh and dried, kaffir lime, galangal and garlic (many more went into each one!!) turmeric being the one that makes the yellow curry go yellow!

Once the pastes were made we went into the kitchen and started on the mains. We all chose from a selection of 3 different dishes per course and so have 5 in total to cook. We chose different options on purpose so we could try different things. The mains being green and yellow curry, a soup either traditional Thai or Tom Yum, a stir-fired dish, papaya salad, a noodle dish and a dessert. By the end of the day we had cooked and eaten most of our food including the dessert and we had pad thai and noodle dishes ready to take away and eat later on. It was a good course and we’d recommend this school to anyone looking for a cookery get away.

We enjoyed Thai massages that evening along with a few people who had joined us on the course. This is something you must do when you come to Thailand; have a Thai massage. Helen opted for an oil body massage which was very good indeed, and Dave enjoyed a more hardy traditional Thai one, both costing in total 400 baht. Not bad! We went to a salon called Panna which is located near to the eastern gate and we liked the idea of doing a one day massage course and looked into this for when we would be back from Pai.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)