End of the holidays and back to Na Kae!

Sorry it's been such a long time, I've been back in Na Kae for a couple of weeks now and it's been a little bit hectic! But for now, the rest of the holidays.

After my amazing trip to Sarnelli Orphanage and Nong Khai I headed to Chiang Mai to meet my project partner, Caitlin. She had been doing a temple meditation course there as her secondary project. I spent a few days in Chiang Mai going through all the markets - there are so many of them! Every evening from about 7pm there is amn enormous night bazaar that seems to go on forever, and on Saturdays there is a walking market on one side of the city, then on Sunday there is another one on the other side. If you're not careful you can end up buying lots... not that I'm talking from experience or anything! While we were there we decided to do a cookery course, something which I've been wanting to do for a while, so we booked ourselves onto the full day one. It was brilliant! The day started at about 9am when we were taken with four other tourists to the market by the man running the course. He was hilarious and spoke really good English so was able to keep craching jokes. For instance, while he was showing us various different types of the same vegetable he described them as 'same same, but different" which is a joke for ladyboys. A ladyboy is a boy who wants to be a girl, so the joke in Thailand is that they are the same as a girl, but different - hence "same same, but different". Unfortunately we didn't know that this phrase refers to the ladyboy culture of Thailand so when Jake, Caitlin's friend, came over he bought a t-shirt with this slogan printed in huge letters across the front and back! Possibly there was more than one reason why he kept getting whistled at in the street while he was here! At the market we got told how to pick out good vegetables and what each different vegetable was used for which was good. We were also shown how to pick out good eggs, but when Caitlin and I tried this back in Na Kae we ended up buying a bag of eggs that literally broke when you picked them up... possibly more practice is needed!
We were then taken to the man's house (I have unfortunately forgotten his name, so will refer to him was Ben) to begin the course! We got to make 3 dishes individually, 3 dishes together and were shown how to make several small things like sauces and curry pastes and helped make them together as a group. I chose to make Tom Yum (spicy and sour soup, usually with shrimp), Paneng Curry and a stir fried noodle dish on my own, and as a group we made Som Tham (which, being in Isaan I've already made countless times so this was definitely the easiest!), Sticky Rice with Mango and Spring Rolls. We also got shown how to make red and green curry paste - it takes a lot of mashing with a morter and pestel, but you can cheat and use a blender if you want to :P
The Tom Yum wen't really well, usually it's not my favourite dish - it's nice but can sometimes be a bit overpowering, but I really liked the taste of the one that Ben cooked with me. Hopefully I'll be able to re-create it without the help of a Thai cook! I chose to make Paneng curry because Caitlin wanted to do red curry and I know that my mum has recipes for red curry at home already, so thought it wouldbe good to try something different. It was nice, but I prefer the traditional red and green Thai curries. The paneng curry we made was with tofu but it can be made with meat too which I think would be nicer. Noodles aren't as big a food in Thailand as rice is, but noodle dishes are still around. They aren't in Na Kae much because so much rice is grown, so the only noodle dishes you'll find regularly around here are Pad Thai (fried noodles, Thailand's national dish) and noodle soup which has been brought over from Vietnam. You do get the occasional noodle dish though, often at shopping centres like the Big C in Sakhon Nakhon, and they are really nice. The dish I made went quite well, it was nice and simple which is good so I'm thinking it will possible be a good uni food to make!
As I've already mentioned, the Som Tham wasn't anything new to us because we've made it so many times with Pippa and her family, but we were disappointed that Ben decided to use a grater to shred the papaya instead of the traditional "attack with a knife until strips fall off" method that we use here. Admittedly it was a lot faster though!
Sticky Rice and Mango is one of my favourite Thai desserts. A lot of That Desserts are... strange. A lot of them are jelly lumps in condendes milk, and after trying them I must say that I'm not a huge fan. However sweet sticky rice is delicious, and the mangos in Thailand are also delicious, so putting the two together is genius!
Spring Rolls were fun to make, you fry soaked glass noodles and pretty much any sort of shredded vegetable that you like with whatever meat you feel like eating, and then roll it up in a spring roll case. Ben said that usually to seal them egg white is used, but he made a really cool gluestick out of a banana! Much more fun!
All in all I think I did quite well - everything turned out quite well, and unlike Caitlin I didn't manage to mash the chillis in the morter so hard that they bounced back out and went everywhere. I was also able to flip my noodles in the pan without them going everywhere which I was quite proud of. At one point Ben showed us that by adding water to hot oil you make the wok catch fire for a few seconds. After this we prepared out woks for the next dish which I think it was the noodle dish. I obviously wasn't paying attention because I failed to notice that what he was making us do was exactly what he had just done to make the wok catch fire. Everyone else was ready and expecting their wok to erupt in flames. I, however, was not, so I screamed and nearly dropped it, much to everyone else's amusement! Note to self: Pay more attention!
When the course was over we got to eat everything we'd made, and we got a recipe book which had the recipes to every dish in it and lots of information about the ingredients. We got a certificate, too. It was a really enjoyable day and I'm so glad I did it - the whole thing only cost us 900B each which is about 18 pounds! It was meant to a bit more but we had the old leaflet in which the price hadn't been changed, so Ben said that we only needed to pay 900B instead of the new amount, which I think was about 1,300B.

After our few days in Chiang Mai it was time to head back to Na Kae for the start of term. Now, we'd previously been told that the kids started school again on the 6th, but that we didn't need to start until the 15th. We then saw that the 15th is a Sunday, so actually we start on the 16th. We were then told that in fact the 17th is a Buddhist holiday anyway, so we don't need to start teaching until the 18th. After arriving in Na Kae we were then told that actually, we weren't needed until the following week because all the kids were doing questionairs at Na Kae Pitt., and the primary school kids were too busy with start of term activities and classes. So we decided to clean the house, which proved to be rather an epic task.

When we arrived at the house we were faced with a note on the door telling us that at 9pm every night until 6am the following morning a dog, names Pui, would be "released" because of burglars. The note said that she can be aggressive to people she doesn't know, so the best course of action if we meet her just back away slowly saying her name in a calming voice. It then said that an even better course of action is to avoid facing her. Brilliant, another dog to avoid! Once we entered the house we soon discovered that much bigger problems were lurking. Piles on plaster on the floor below freshly nibbled holes in the ceiling told us that the mice who we had lived quite happilly with before this had either multiplied or decided that the house belonged to them. Our nibbled mosquito nests enforced this. We then found a dead mouse on the living room floor and quickly removed him. In the kitchen however, Caitlin had the delight of discovering a huge, dead rat. Again this was quickly removed. We phoned our host to ask for her advice, and got none, so phoned Lucie, our rep, who said that the rodents would probably move out once we moved in, and siggested that in the meantime we "borrow a cat". It took us the best part of three or four days to completely clean the house - this included mopping every floor at least three times, washing everything we owned because the mice/rats had decided that the best place to use as a toiler would be our wardrobe, sweeping everywhere, washing our bedclothes, and finally trying to unblock the shower plug. We couldn't unblock it on our own, and we couldn't clean the bathroom until it was unblocked (in Thailand showers don't have cubicles, the water just goes onto the floor then into a hole), and we didn't want to to buy the scarilly strong looking drain cleaner from Tescos because it had several "toxic" and "danger" labels on it, and the instrustions were entirely in Thai. We asked the woman who has taken on the job of being our main host several times, and she said that she would phone the owner of the house. This went on for a few days until we got tired of having to shower at our neighbors house, so eventually found someone else to help. After having black drain cleaner which fizzed poured down it by the handyman, it seems to be better, and much cleaner which is good. So, the house was finally finished!

Now, back to Pui. After reading the note about this dog which would be on patrol every night, Caitlin and I were expecting some sort of "Hound of the Baskervilles"-esk creature. A doberman or such like. What we were not expecting, and what we got, was a rather small, orange and white collie/spaniel cross. She is quite flightly, and if you make any sudden movements instead of charging at you like the note would suggest, she flees. One time I thought I was in trouble because she came right up to me and started nudging against my leg with her mouth part open. Scared that I was going to get bitten I started to back away, only to have her roll onto her back and grin a doggy grin at me. She does have an annoying habbit of circling your legs making it difficult to walk though. I am very glad that she isn't a giant doberman who wants to eat me, but I must admit the note on the door was slightly over the top!

We are both teaching again now, and I'm actually really enjoying it. I was concerned that after the holidays, and because this term we are teaching more lessons, I would find it much harder but in fact I think the opposite has happened. I've really enjoyed seeing my classes again, and the new year ones are lovely. Some of them have come from the rural primary schools so know very little English, if any, so it's a challenge to teach them as I also have some who have come from the private primary school and so know a fair amount of English.

I can't believe that this year is passing so quickly - I only have about 6 more weeks left in Na Kae before I go travelling for another month, and I've had and am having so many amazing experiences.

Massive good luck wishes to Pippa who landed in Germany yesterday to spend 3 months there. I don't know if Germany know's what's hit it... Unfortunately she'll not be back by the time that we leave, but hopefully we'll get to see her again sometime, either in Thailand or in Germany. Good Luck!