Journey to Peace Village

I flew into Bangkok last night and am already regretting I only have two days in this beautiful, but congested city. This morning I attended a cooking class at the Silom Cooking school. Our teacher, Nusi, is an experienced Thai chef and helped us pick out the ingredients at a "wet market"--basically just a big open air market where you can buy fresh fruit, vegetables, seafood and meat. Then we returned to his school to prepare the foods and various sauces by hand using small machetes and a large mortar and pestle. My classmates were two Austrailians, and a chef from Israel who has been travelling in India and Thailand to create new recipes for his business in Tel Aviv.
The experience was full of vibrant colors, fragrant smells and delicious food. There are many varieties of rice, corriander, basil and ginger that unfamiliar to the Westerners but easily and cheaply available in Thai markets. Nusi ran us through our paces with everything from creating curries to the proper way to shell prawns for an exquisite soup. It was an experience that my taste buds will be demanding for years to come.
Then in the afternoon I hopped on a Thai bus and headed for Lord knows where. I had a terrific tour of parts of Bangkok on a crowded bus with all the windows popped open because there is no air conditioning. I just enjoyed the sights and jumped off at a stop near the elephant pictured above. It's right near a large technical university. As I type this, I'm in an internet cafe surrounded by kids and young people playing shoot em up and monster fighting games. I don't know where I am exactly, but fortunately, Thai taxis are easy to get from anywhere and relatively cheap, so I should be able to venture back to the hotel.

Labels: Bangkok, culture and society, Thai food, Thailand