Chiang Mai, the Samoeng Loop, and Thai cuisine

We say good bye to Chiang Rai as we head out of town on the bus on Wednesday morning. A pleasant enough city, but not a whole heap to see or do within. The bus chugs south for about four hours - at least we're out of the heat of the midday sun.

We're completely unprepared for our arrival in Chiang Mai. No research, no Lonely Planet, no clue as to the layout of the city, or where to go for a cheap guesthouse. By chance we're sitting in front of a couple of Dutch girls, who are returning to their guesthouse after a trip north. They recommend it, and in a few minutes we're on our way with them in a couple of tuk tuks to The Safe House.

As it happens, it's pretty much perfect. 350 baht per night, good room, and reasonably handy to everything, though noting Chiang Mai's a big town and you really need a tuk tuk to get around with any speed. We spend the afternoon cruising the markets and shopping centres - Fi's on her way home to NZ and has no clothes to wear! We decide that Bangkok will be better for shopping, and will therefore only spend two and a half days here.

Which brings us to Thurs 20th, and the Samoeng Loop. I'd heard about this ride through the National Parks nort west of Chiang Mai while researching motorbike rental from NZ, and was keen to do it. A quick bit of googling finds Mr Mechanic Bike Rentals just down the road from our guesthouse, and in the far corner, behind all the scooters, is an ageing Honda CB750. "Good enough!" I thought, and after a thorough check and 500 baht poorer we were heading out on the highway.

The poor suspension coupled with the near-bald rear tyre worn to a square section were the worst problems. It took a while to get used to the handling. Second problem was the gutless performance down low, and the slightly tall third gear in the clunky gearbox that wouldn't find neutral. Give me a newish V-twin any day!

But pretty soon we were on our way through a 100km loop of biker heaven. Endless curves winding up and down hills and valleys through the Khun Khan, Doi Suthep and Doi Pui National Parks. Doesn't get much better than this. We take it easy though, not just due to the bike. The seal's a bit rough in patches, dogs are running around, and the odd kamikaze car overtakes into our path. And of course we have no insurance, apart from medical should we have a spill. But I'd carefully packed the First Aid kit to ward off any such occurences.

We stop for lunch half way in Samoeng.

Admire the views over Khun Khan from the lookout.

And pose for the record. No - Fiona wears the cute pink helmet!

After returning the bike unscathed, we head for the shopping centre. Fi's had a problem with her camera's memory card - looks like an electrical spike while inserting it in an Internet PC has taken out the directory structure, and all the camera wants to do now is reformat it. We find a Kodak shop that has some nifty file recovery utilities, and all images are saved, including ones long since purposefully deleted. Everything's copied to a pair of DVDs, including the contents of my virus-affected card too.

Delighting in Thai cuisine, and with the good experiences of my Hoi An cooking class behind me, Fi and I book a class at an organic farm half an hour out of Chiang Mai - The Organic Farm Thai Cooking School. After a stop at the markets we reach the farm and are guided past all the herbs and spices we use actually growing - a big change from picking them off supermarket shelves.

Down to business, and our first step is to grind our own green curry paste in a mortar & pestle before turning it in to a chicken curry dish. Tom Yum with shrimps is next, followed by fried chicken with basil leaves.


We have them for lunch, and very tasty they are too - though Fi claims hers are better than mine.


In the afternoon we turn our attention to deep-fried spring rolls and the classic Pad Thai dish. But after sampling our morning's efforts, we have no room for these, so keep them for dinner on the train.

Yet another great cooking experience, and I'm keen to try out all the recipes on unsuspecting victims (ie friends and family) when I get home.