Mae Hong Son Loop

Back in Pai, Keels and I took a Thai cooking class that was pretty sweet. The class was put on by a local Thai woman who ran a legit cooking school. It included learning to cook 6 traditional Thai dishes (Pad Thai, Curries, soup, and desert) from scratch, going to the local market, and just a great overall experience. There were six people in the class (2 guys from Israel, 2 from Korea, and us) so it was hands on,

and all of the food turned out great. We even got a recipe book that we could bring home to remind us of the dishes we cooked... the hardest part will be finding the ingredients back home (dried shrimp, fish oil, etc)

We spoke to a lot of people in Pai, and from what we gathered it was a real hot spot in the high season (Dec & Jan)... but we must have caught it in the super low season because it seemed like a ghost town. It had many empty guesthouses, and restaurants... wherever we went we were impressed, but wondering where everyone was. After two days in Pai,  we got back on the Mae Hong Son loop with the motorcycles and it was incredible. I had no idea that Northern Thailand would be such a motorcycler's paradise. The roads were great by US standards, 1864 curves (perfect for the bikes... my dad would be jealous http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwkcuGjz0rc ), and the scenery was what you would see in the movies.It was a bit rainy, and would rain hard at least once per day, but we had rain gear and were often dried out quickly. It was a bit cold when we got to the tops of the mountains (50's F), but other than that it was spectacular. We went from Pai to Mae Hong Son, then to Mae Sariang... the further we went the less tourists we saw. Mae Sariang the level of English speaking locals went way down. The towns were a mix of Thai and a local mountain people "Karen" who were refugees from Burma. I will try to post some more photos...it just took forever to upload them for some reason this time :-(.
Next we are on to Laos...we have to catch a couple buses to Chaing Khong, then taking a  2 day slow boat to up the Mekong river to Laos (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD6lqFRIOO4).. it should be a relaxing journey, yet a little remote. They only have wooden seats on the boat, and most people complain about being uncomfortable o the two day trip. However being the clever lad I am, I bought a parachute hammock (for $7) that I am going to string up. Its going to be two days of straight relaxing for me :-) I will try to update when we get to Luang Prabang