chiang mai project

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the chiang mai project

THE IDEA -
AND THE STORY BEHIND IT

Three years ago we bought an apartment in Chiang Mai, a medium-sized city in Northern Thailand. We'd been visiting Chiang Mai somewhat regularly over the last thirty years, and had always said to each other that if we ever had a base in Asia, that's where we'd choose to be.

Still, when it happened, buying the apartment was a spur of the moment decision. One night on the internet we came across an apartment for sale right in the middle of our favorite neighborhood in Chiang Mai, just minutes away from the fabulous old central market known as Gat Luang. It was a corner apartment with lots of light, and even though there were just two small pictures in the advertisement, the place looked perfect (and affordable).

So Jeffrey jumped on a plane, arrived in Chiang Mai, and bought it. We didn't have a plan; it just seemed like the right thing to do (and two years later we were able to buy the neighboring apartment, also an airy corner space).

We've made many trips back and forth in these last few years and each trip is somehow always different and always intense in the best sort of way. We've met incredible street vendors and local cooks.

This year (2008) in June we came home from a trip to Chiang Mai determined to figure out a way to help some of the great cooks we've met make a better living. At the same time we wanted to make it possible for them to share their skills (and unfailing good humor and spirit) with people from North America who are intensely interested in food, people happy to IMMERSE THROUGH FOOD.

And so here we are embarking on a kind of combo cooking-food shopping-eating immersion course. The details are set out in "THE NUTS AND BOLTS OF THE PLAN" to the right.

The goal of each day and of every evening is immersion: shopping, cooking smelling, tasting, language, laughing, and fun.

Each participant will have a cell phone to use while in Chiang Mai, and to get around we will depend upon tuktuks (three-wheeled scooter rickshaws) and on rot daeng (converted pick-up trucks), not busses or vans.

Long ago we stayed in an inexpensive guesthouse in Chiang Khan, a peaceful village on the Mekong River in northeast Thailand. In our room (as there was in every room) was a handwritten booklet about local sights, eateries, etc that the owners recommended. At the end of the book was a paragraph about the "philosophy" of the guesthouse. It asked that everyone, while in Chiang Khan, try to spend as much money "as low" as possible, eating in markets, taking rickshaws, etc.

Our "philosophy" in setting up this tour is to leave all profits in Thailand. After paying all expenses, we will put whatever is left into a fund that will remain in Chiang Mai. Later we'll use the fund to help create a local NGO or a co-op restaurant or an organic garden.

At this point we don't know how best to use the fund, but our goal is to use it to "grow" something locally, something that will bring together the western world and the Thai world, something that will be of benefit to people in Thailand, and something that celebrates life through food. This is the start of our Chiang Mai Project.

Thank-you in advance for participating.

- jeffrey & naomi

fruit for sale by Gat Luang

photo: NAOMI DUGUID

street vendor by Gat Luang, Chiang Mai

photo: NAOMI DUGUID

THE NUTS AND BOLTS OF THE PLAN

This February, February of 2009, we will lead one eight-day session of immersethrough travel in Chiang Mai, using food as our entry point.

This is our first-ever tour, and it is actually not really a tour but more like an intensive cooking school and eating experience rolled into one...

Participants (a maximum of ten people) will shop at Gat Luang, the central market, in the morning and then cook together to prepare lunch, which we'll eat together.

Each day we’ll explore a different aspect of Thai cuisine, from the distinctive culinary traditions of the north, and of the northeast, to Shan (tai yai) cuisine, Thai grilling and salads, and streetfoods.

Afternoons will be free for relaxing or for independent exploring in and around Chiang Mai, then we’ll meet for drinks and supper at a different place each evening. Those evening meals will reinforce what we've learned in the day and introduce new ideas too.

The first two days, on Monday and Tuesday, we'll engage with northern Thai food. On Tuesday afternoon (or perhaps early Wednesday morning) we'll head for the hills.

We want to vary the pace and to give a taste of the countryside, so we're going to make an excursion out of town.

The plan is that we'll stay in the pretty little town of Thaton on the Nam Kok River, surrounded by the hills on the Thai-Burma border. On Wednesday morning we'll make a morning exploration of the once-a-week market in the nearby town of Fang, to which hill people come with produce of all kinds.

We'll then drive a short way to a small beautiful farm for a Tai Yai (Shan) cooking session with a Shan woman named Jam. Our friend and partner Fern will be there to help with translation. Jam is a fabulous cook. We're so lucky to be able to engage with grassroots Shan cuisine, and in the countryside. The next day (Thursday) we'll be back for a second class with her, then drive back into Chiang Mai for supper in the old city.

We will have two more cooking sessions after we return to Chiang Mai: Friday morning, Issaan (northeast Thai) food, and Saturday late afternoon, to grill and make an array of Thai salads for supper.

Sunday is clear, for excusions, or at least until the late afternoon, when we'll meet at a wat (temple) by the Sunday Market, for a last feast together.

Accommodations in Chiang Mai, and on the excursion to Thaton, will be comfortable and also distinctively Thai. We've found a wonderful hotel in Chiang Mai, the Banthai Village. It opened just a year ago, is beautiful and calm, located on a lane behind a temple (Wat Bupparam) and only a five minute walk from the apartments.

All accommodation will be singles, unless we receive a request from two people who wish to share a double. The food we prepare together, will be authentic, not adapted for foreign tastes or preferences.

The dates for winter 2009 are February 1 to 9 and the we are already fully booked. Our next session we hope will be in November 2009, probably November 8 to the 16th. Please check here or write to us if you want to pin the dates down early.

The price, which includes eight nights hotel and meals in Chiang Mai and environs, cooking classes and marketing, and the overnight excursion out of town, is US$3625. Not included are transportation to and from Chiang Mai, departure taxes, optional excursions, travel documents, or travel insurance, nor items of a personal nature such as laundry, gratuities, special diets.

To sign up, please contact travel agent Deb Olson, our partner in Immerse Through LLC. You can reach her by email at deb@immersethrough.com or call her at 307-745-7191.

Deb is our long-time friend and is also a very experienced travel agent. She is widely travelled and very practical and thorough, so we recommend that you consider asking her to make your other travel arrangements too, including booking for any travel you may want to do in the region before the tour starts or after it is over. We recommend that you also ask her about travel insurance.

Before committing to the trip, please read very carefully the terms and conditions that Deb will send you if you are interested in participating. You'll need to fax to her a signed copy of the terms to indicate that you have read and understood them, and agreed to them; that, along with a deposit of US$1000, will reserve you a place, if available. The balance of the cost is payable not later than 60 days before the start of the session you are booking.

preliminary advice: Please make sure that you have a valid passport, the term of which is longer than six months after the date on which you plan to return home. Once you have booked, Deb will provide you with some more travel advice, for example about what to bring with you, and what to leave at home. The weather is warm to hot in February, with cooler nights, so plan on layers of light cottons, with maybe a sweater for the evenings and for very air-conditioned places, and comfortable shoes or sandals. We also recommend that you bring earplugs; the tropics can be a noisy place to sleep for light sleepers.