Asia Scenic Thai Cooking School, Wat Chedi Luang Monk Chat

Today we had our second Thai cooking school experience - this one in urban Chiang Mai, a short walk from our hotel, at Asia Scenic with "A", a diminutive, but authoritative and funny young male Thai chef. He equated "spicy" with "sexy" on Thai food culture which made for lots of (intended) double entendres throughout our cooking school day! So..."how sexy you want?" meant "how many chili peppers in your curry paste?". Good cuisine learning and lots of fun as well as a delicious succession of Thai dishes! Our cultural exposure day found balance later with a visit to another of Chiang Mai's many Buddhist temples, Wat Chedi Luang, where we had an hour Q&A with "Ja", a young Buddhist monk, as part of the temple's "Monk Chat" program. He is almost 20, has been a novice monk for 5 years, and plans to remain a monk for a further 3 years before becoming a teacher and rejoining normal Thai society. It was great to have the chance to ask all those things about which we had been wondering as we observed Thai religious life in Chiang Mai (94% of Thais are Buddhist). eg. Q: why do bad things happen to good people? A: karma; they did bad things in a previous life. Okay...an answer, yes, but perhaps no more satisfying than "shit happens"! They also have some philosophical sayings on little signs on the trees near the Monk Chat area - food for thought...