Chiang Rai Thai Cooking Class with Market Tour

Suwannee Thai Cooking Class in Chiang Rai runs a four-and-a-half-hour class for up to eight people, and everyone gets their own cooking station. You don’t share a wok or take turns. The class uses organic ingredients and starts with a walk round the town’s fresh market.

You meet at 09:30 in front of the old white clock tower by Chiang Rai’s fresh market, also called the morning market. The teacher shops for the day’s ingredients with you, then takes you to the kitchen to prepare and cook. The menu listed for the class is green papaya salad with long beans and tomato, tom yum with tiger prawns, chicken green curry made from homemade paste and fresh coconut cream, and bananas in coconut milk for dessert. You eat together at the end.

Drinking water, snacks, seasonal fruit and a cold towel are included; soft drinks and alcohol are not. The class is taught in English and Dutch, and the operator lists the kitchen as fully wheelchair accessible.

Insider Tip: Keep breakfast light. You cook and eat four dishes before lunchtime.

Watch out: The meeting point is the old white clock tower by the market, not the gold clock tower in the centre of town. They’re easy to mix up.

A cooking class makes a good quiet morning between Chiang Rai’s big sights. Save the temples for a separate day, on a White Temple cycling tour or a private day tour.