During our recent trip to Thailand after hitting Bangkok, see my post here …. https://kritterspaw.com/2023/12/06/bangkok-thailand/ , we drove 9-1/2 hours north of Bangkok to Chiang Mai or New City. As it is such a long trek, we stopped at Sukhothai along the way.

Thailand in general has over 40,000 temples, one in every village. So if you are interested in seeing temples, there are many, and from just the few we saw, they are very different from one another. Yui, our guide, was gracious enough to share her culture and educate us a bit on something we knew very little about. We stopped at relatively new temples which are a testament to the depth of commitment to the teachings of Buddha, and the offerings to Buddha and the monks to support the temples and their way of life.

We stopped at the ancient temple in Sukhothai which is considered the temple of the great relic and dates back to 1300. It is particularly notable because it is the only temple with a lotus flower atop the chedi. It’s a fascinating look at an early example of temples and the similarities to today’s temples.

But what we enjoyed most in Sukhothai, even more than the historic temples, were the cooking classes that we absolutely loved in both Sukhothai and Chiang Mai.

We not only got to try some amazing food, we got to make it with local people, who we truly enjoyed. It was such a fantastic way to experience northern Thailand, I can’t imagine a better experience.

We made EVERYTHING. We made papaya salad, khao soi. We made curries from chili paste we made from scratch. We made fried flowers, and learned to wrap with banana leaves. We made dessert, and ate it too.

As wonderful as the food was, the very BEST part was cooking along side the locals with their passion for food and teaching. I absolutely will make this food at home and think of the beautiful personalities we met. It was such a phenomenal experience.

While I was wow’d by the cooking classes we experienced, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention what a lovely city Chiang Mai is. It is full of modern coffee shops, tea shops, and Michelin recommended restaurants. It has temples galore, the most impressive, not to be missed in Chiang Mai is the Doi Suthep, both the upper and lower temples. The lower temple, the jungle temple is fascinating as it seems untouched by time from 700 years ago. Though, the temple at the top of the hill, is equally impressive in a different way.

Back in 1300’s a white elephant carrying a relic from Buddha was said to walk up to the hill and collapse. It’s at this site that the ‘upper’ temple was built on that very site and the chedi is said to house the relic the white elephant carried.

We were extremely fortunate to have wonderful guides to guide us through our experiences, giving them depth and meaning. We can’t thank Yui, Lynn, Tom, Ann, and Mr. O enough for all they taught us and we learned and enjoyed through them.