I took part in a Thai cooking course as the food here is so fresh and full of colour that I wanted to learn about all these unusual vegetables and spices and turn them into something fantastic to eat.
I used to do a lot of cooking back at home but I lost my love for it when it became a chore everyday to think of new and healthy things to eat, on a budget and on a diet. When I became single I could barely muster the energy to cook freezer food so my lazy diet became bowls of cereal and Doritos with copious amounts of white wine as I had just lost the urge to spend ages in the kitchen and wasn’t used to the quantities of cooking for one.
But I want to get this love back especially with the amount of food that is grown here and is so cheap to buy and cook.
So my group of seven, which included two Aussies, two Spanish and two Finnish girls, were led to the market by a bubbly Thai lady called Gaye, who explained her name saying ‘I don’t love women but I am very happy’ before falling into a fit of giggles. At the stalls we were told about the different vegetables they have including elephant ear mushrooms and morning glory!
The adorable Gaye
We bought the ingredients and headed back to the cooking school to make the first dish which was chicken pad Thai, this is so easy to make as you kind of bung everything in a wok. We also made Thai green chicken curry, spring rolls and our own green curry paste which is a great bingo wing workout and stress release as you are pounding all these herbs and spices into submission.
Alive, dead, then ready to cook….
It was so nice being sat around this table, eating what we had just prepared and speaking to these lovely people from across the world.
Start of chicken pad Thai
Spring roll stage 1 and complete! Simples
I also met another single female traveler who asked me to join her for dinner with another girl the following evening. We went to this gorgeous restaurant on the river for fresh fish and cocktails. There was a live band on downstairs and you literally had to elbow your way to a table past all these dancing and singing Thai couples. On our way out we bumped into another solo girl traveller called Tati from brazil who spoke the most perfect English and joined in on our girly posse as we headed off to find more drinks and dancing.
We ended up at this little cluster of bars that was a proper mix of cheesy pop, hard rock and reggae music. We opted for this reggae bar in the corner and as the alcohol flowed, we danced along to this amazing band feeling carefree and tipsy happy. It soon became one of those nights that you didn’t want to end, you know the kind, and at 1am when the bar shut we were stood chatting near the queue of tuk tuks and kebab cart to other drunk happy travellers. It felt like the end of a regular night in Manchester, getting cheesy chips and making new friends trying to figure out a way you can stop the sunlight coming as you were having too much fun to call it a night.
This is where we met two guys from bath called Seb and james and after a brief introduction we headed off in search of a club that was open later to continue the party. The tuk tuk driver took us to this nightclub that had drum and bass, house music and cheap buckets-perfect. The next few hours were a blur of deep and meaningful’s mixed with strutting our stuff on the dance floor. We were soon the only westerners in the club raving away until the lights came on. It was 9am how did that happen?! Ok now it was time to call it a night!
