I love cooking. I love Thai food. So it would only make sense for me to take a Thai cooking class while in Thailand. The company we booked it with was called Thai Akha Cooking School, in Chiang Mai. They’ll pick you up from your hotel, and the first stop is a local market, where the teacher explains some of the ingredients we’ll be using. Some of the vendors let us taste test things like jackfruit, and nam prik (chili and fish paste).

Next, they’ll take you to the school, where each student has their own station and set of ingredients.

Cooking station

From there, you can choose what you’d like to make from a few options. I went with papaya salad, red curry, and pad thai. There were also a few other dishes they showed us how to make that were specific to the Akha region, which is a region in Northern Thailand.

Papaya salad in the making

Curry paste in the making

Almost done!

The finished product: Red curry, green curry, and massaman curry

Thai basil hot chicken and pad thai

It was definitely the best cooking class I’ve ever taken. You get to learn a lot about Thai dishes, the ingredients that go in them, and all of the different types of flavors.

For anyone traveling to Thailand, a cooking class is a definite must!