Everything started at 8:30 on Saturday night when all of the TLC Temples rocked up to school for the last time in 3 weeks. Moods varied between utter excitement and nervousness as emotional goodbyes were exchanged. With a few tears from both sides we boarded the bus and left for the airport. It felt surreal and dream-like; no one felt like they were actually leaving for the trip of a lifetime. We arrived at the airport at around 9:30 and made our way through check in, customs and immigration. We boarded the plane at 12:00am and even though it was midnight no one was tired as the adrenaline rushed through us. The flight from Melbourne to Bangkok lasted over 9 hours, after a 3 hour stop in Bangkok airport we were ready for another flight to our final destination of the day; Chiang Mai. We stepped out of Chiang Mai airport at 28ยบ, and the heat was felt by everyone, we really felt like we were in Thailand.
After we had arrived in Chiang Mai we travelled by bus to our hotel. We had two local guides with us who discussed some Thai history. It was really cool because they also performed a song to us from the annual water festival that had finished yesterday. After arriving at our hotel and dropping off our bags we hopped on some tuk-tuks. These were amazing and were so much fun to ride and completely different from anything we had experienced before. The tuk-tuks took us around the city then stopped at an old buddhist temple. It was really interesting to be able to go into the temple and see first hand how it worked. At the temple we also learnt lots about the biggest religion in Thailand. Some fun facts we learnt were that 95% of the Thai people are buddhist, there is a different buddha statue posed for everyday of the week. A buddhist male is encouraged to become a monk for at least a week during their life; however, some decide to stay for longer with many living as a monk for a year. I think that overall we all found the temple an enlightening experience.
Later that afternoon the group left for an evening of Thai cooking classes. We travelled for 45 minutes into the countryside where we arrived at a farm. Here we split into 3 cooking groups and moved off with a different instructor. We walked around the farm finding, smelling and tasting all of the fresh herbs, spices, fruits and vegetables that we would be using in the cooking. These ranged from everyday coriander to galangal which is a Thai ginger. After this we got to start cooking. We made 4 dishes each and they were all delicious. We started with a tom yum soup, followed by pad Thai and Thai green curry, finished with mango and sticky rice. Everybody got so involved in the cooking and we all came away with so much more knowledge. We all left with full stomachs and satisfied taste buds. After a tiring bus ride back everyone was eager to get into bed, ready for an early start and another jam packed day tomorrow.
Jess and Ryan.
