Karen and the Mongs.

It's so strange being somewhere this Westernised after our latest exploits. Thailand has big roads with lines painted down the middle, cars and a Starbucks! It looks very futuristic and a bit weird, but as cities go, Chiang Mai is a nice, chilled out place. There is plenty of rural life in the surrounding area, it's just a case of getting out of the city a bit. So we did our new favourite thing and went trekking (I can't bring myself to use the treeking word any more). After travelling for about 45 minutes until we saw green, we walked up stupidly steep hills for a bit and ate some lychees growing wild. The reason? To go see some Mongs.

The Mong tribe originate from China and are Thailand's second largest hill-tribe group. They are also present in Laos and Vietnam (as we saw in Sapa) and their economy is centred around rice, corn and opium. We have grown to hate these sort of "ethnic zoos" as it feels like such an intrusion on daily lives. This feeling is compounded by people taking photos of the locals without asking their permission first. Next port of call was the Karen tribe, the most well-known being the "Long Necks" who wear heavy gold necklaces added one by one, to elongate the neck. These must stay in place throughout life as removing them would cause the vertebrae to collapse.

That debacle over with, we went on the exciting part of the trip - the elephant ride! Thai elephants are allowed 5 years of childhood before they become workers. They then undergo a training for 5 years under the guidance of a mahout (an elephant caretaker) which involves carrying and stacking logs, bathing and walking in procession. Mahouts often work as father and son teams - allowing them to see the same elephant through its lifetime. Thai law stipulates that they are only allowed to work until they are 61, allowing most of them a retirement of 20 years, when they are released back into the wild.

I read a horrifying tale about owners keeping their elephants stoked up on amphetamines, to enable them to work day and night (and proabably put them off their bananas too). Since the logging industry became illegal in 1989, there is now less demand for elephant labour. This has driven some unemployed mahouts to take their elephants to cities like Bangkok, where they make money from selling bananas and sugarcane to feed the elephants. Obviously, elephants don't fare very well in cities, so you're not meant to support this move by buying them food. There are now less than 3,000 wild elephants and 2,300 domesticated elephants in thailand, which makes them an endangered species. Believe it or not, there is still a black-market trade in ivory.

Obviously used to hard work, I still felt sorry for our elephant as we'd had a massive lunch. We set off with our mahout into the forest. Except we hadn't brought any money to buy him any bananas and as a result, he was a bit wayward and his trunk kept snaking its way upto us, in search of a nibble. He also seemed to have a very itchy bottom and kept stopping to scratch it against tree stumps (something we could both empathise with). A very weird and worrying sensation when you're sat on top of him...especially when there was no safety bar to hold onto! When I pointed out this fact to the mahout, he just laughed and led the elephant down a very steep slope. It had been raining and so the ground was muddy and slippery. Hanging on for dear life, I'm not sure we enjoyed the experience (remember the elephant ride upto Jaipur fort, Em?), but it was still lovely to see my favourite animals. And our new elephant foot umbrella stand will look great in our new flat.

We then had to go and see some rubbish brown waterfall, which wouldn't have looked out of place in Willy Wonka's factory and then everyone else went down the river on bamboo rafts. ever the hard- man, Andy didn't want to because it was quite cool that day and he didn't want to get wet. The decision was finalised when there was only one lifejacket left between two of us, so we sat and had a beer and a few prawn crackers to wait for the rest of the group. Anyway, I almost choked on my Singha when I spotted this monster, just lying in wait for some unsuspecting victim (like the next elephant that came along). Incidently, I'm enjoying the 6% Singha (pronounced "Sing" beer), not to mention the cheeky 6.4% Chang beer which is even cheaper. Hope you enjoy this picture Mazza!

Fortunately, the following day was free of unpleasant surprises and we enrolled on one of the famous Chiang Mai cookery courses! There's about a million schools to choose from, but we went with the Organic Farm, as the setting sounded very tranquil. First stop was the local food market, to collect our ingredients. Our teacher, (her name was Nice) told us all about the different types of curry paste, and the vast array of herbs used in Thai cooking. One revelation was watching (and tasting ) freshly pressed coconut milk, which we'd be needing for our recipes.

Interestingly, we learnt that the strange brown/purple gelatinous lump we'd been eating in our noodle soup turns out to be chicken blood. Someone also bought some durian, the infamous fruit so revered in Thailand. It's supposed to be as stinky as stilton and will make your breath smell for hours after ingestion. Some hotels and modes of public transport have even banned people bringing it on board. I thought it was quite nice - a sort of pineapple-flavoured cottage cheese. Too weird a texture for a fruit though, for sure.

A drive out into the countryside brought us to the farm. We all had to wear aprons and a funny farming hat in case it rained (it's been doing a lot of that in Chiang Mai). The farm grows all its own herbs and vegetables, which we all had a go of and then we were set on our way. My biggest challenge of the day was trying the ignore this nightmare Irish girl who didn't stop talking. I wouldn't care, but it really was a load of old rubbish. A particular favourite line was, whilst in conversation with three Ozzies, she said (obviously being an expert in this field, as well as many others) "Oh yeah, Australian films are amazing, really good." She managed to quote one which was (I think) Muriel's wedding before stating, "Yeah, my favourite is one called "Maori"". It was a great moment. Unfortunately, the response from the Ozzies only kept her quiet for a nanosecond and then she was right back to it.

Of course, she was sure to secure a wok opposite mine, but I did my utmost to ignore her. This was a tactic I'd observed her boyfriend employing rather effectively. First on the menu was making Green Curry Paste. Contrary to what Jamie Oliver had led me to believe, this doesn't contain corriander, just green chilli (more about that on Return of the Monkey recipe website). You have to pound the ingredients together for 10 minutes before it's ready - what's wrong with a Moulinex, I ask you? Anyway after that we made a lovely Chicken Green Curry, followed by Chicken with Chilli and Holy Basil (amazing). Basically, Andy's motivation to do the course was to determine how to make sticky rice. He's become a little obsessed by it of late and it's all he talks about. We were shown how to make this and I could see his excitement building. You first roll it into balls and then eat with your hands. I was starving by this point and wondered when we were going to get chance to eat something as it was all getting cold.

It wasn't until we'd made some Shrimp Tom Yum soup that we were allowed to get stuck in. We had to add a few extra chillis here and there as it would seem that every other Westerner is dead soft and prefer their food not to taste of anything. The old, "But I like to taste the flavours, not burn my mouth," argument was bandied about, but it just doesn't wash with us. Basically, if you can't handle chilli, you're soft. These are the sort of farang who thrive on omlette and chips. It became ever more clear we had nothing in common with the rest of this group.

Once we'd tried our hardest to eat three lunches, we set to with the task of making pudding (something light perhaps, after all that?). Try Bananas in Coconut Milk! They were very tasty, but too rich for my liking. Not finished yet...we then made Spring Rolls. Groan... Very easy and as nobody could move by this point, we were given little banana leaf boats to take away. I was beginning to detest food and was surprised to find myself nibbling away on my spring rolls in bed that night. We'd had a great day - made even better by the fact that we didn't have to do any chopping of ingredients or any washing up!! Very Delia (Dad, you'd have loved it and don't fret, the kitchen was "absolutely spotless!")

See Return of the Monkey for upcoming recipes!

Tomorrow we're off to Sukhothai (I know). Although the Golden Triangle sounded exotic and enticing initially, we've decided to give it a miss due to time contraints and the possibility of Karen and Mong rebels (can you imagine?). The Golden Triangle comprises of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos borders, within which the opium trade is prevalent. Papaver somniferum (remember giving Papaveritum at work?) is an accepted passtime of the elderly Hill Tribe inhabitants. It is also legal for them. Check out those grinning grannies...