The Backstreet Academy - cooking tarantulas and more!

The Backstreet Academy is a social enterprise that exists throughout Asia to connect tourists with a local person skilled in cooking, dancing, music, art, fishing etc. We have taken part in 3 of these courses so far and found them a great way to not only get exposed to a new skill but also to meet local people and learn more about their culture. In exchange, we paid a fee with most of the fee (about 70%) going directly to the teacher and translator. 

The first course we did was aptly named "Fear Factor". Danny and I have watched a show before about the future of eating bugs - so we thought it was time to try it out. We cooked (and ate) crickets, silk worms and ... Tarantulas!  

Beyond overcoming our fears and learning that crickets are delicious, one of the things that we liked the best was that the course took place in a local Cambodian's home. His 4-year old son was there too and Zac and him had fun picking flowers and playing with balloons. In fact, I think the reason why Zac was willing to try so many of the insects was because this little boy obviously obtained so much pleasure from eating them. 

Our second course was "Coconut carving". Zac and I spent 2 hours learning how to carve coconuts - and it is difficult!  Zac seemed to excel at this more so than I as two of my carvings broke so I was relegated to simple designs where he was quite successful at designing and cutting his own unique shapes. 

I needed a lot of help:

Our third course was "Dessert Making". Zac and I both having sweet tooths, we jumped at this opportunity, and Danny came along to take photos and chat. Again, one of the best parts was that this course took place in our teacher's house so we talked, cooked, and ate while surrounded by multiple generations of Cambodians. Our translator was a university student who was also very interesting and provided insight into what Cambodia needs to move forward as a country. If this young man is an indicator of the country's youth then Cambodia has a much improved future ahead. 

We made four different desserts and they were delicious - all based on varying forms and combinations of rice, coconut, green bean, tapioca, and sugar.  I took detailed notes so hopefully can replicate them when we are back in Canada, or maybe even here in our AirBNB house. 

Sticky rice with coconut custard: (Mmmmmm - much better than tarantulas!)

Backstreet Academy courses are also offered in Laos and Vietnam so I just might have to compare dessert making in all three countries, and learn some other new skills too. You can find out more about the Backstreet Academy by visiting backstreetacademy.com. 

First Week Abroad - Bangkok

Our first week abroad in Bangkok is coming to a close. We stayed in an apartment in Thon Buri, which is 1 "sky train" stop from the river ferries. Danny did a great job finding this place on AirBNB. It took about 5 days to get over our jet lag so it was great to have our own place so we could have breakfast at 3:00 in the morning. Our apt also had a beautiful pool, ping pong table and work out room - all of which we used extensively. 

Most of our days started with a few hours in the pool and then a few hours seeing some sights and eating (yum!) before returning home. Our first outing was to the Aquarium - while it didn't compare to either Toronto or Vancouver's aquarium, but met our objective of keeping zac awake to overcome jet lag and to enjoy the A/C. 

We are now quite comfortable with getting around the city, using either the train or ferry. We figured out how to use the "local" ferry, which is cheaper and runs more frequently than the tourist ferry. This all seemed overwhelming at first but we quickly figured it out and now feel quite comfortable getting around Bangkok. Zac was initially stressed at the uncertainty of it all but after a few successes he is starting to relish the adventure (sometimes). 

While most tourists spend their time seeing many temples, we only went to see one - Wat Pho with an impressively huge reclining Buddha. However, after one day of temples I knew zac was done with that!  

We also went surfing at the Flow House (fun!), celebrated Chinese New Year in Chinatown, and enjoyed some local parks, especially watching the Thai men play this very cool game like volleyball but using only feet. 

Food was a highlight for Danny and I but is challenging with Zac as he is a pretty picky eater and is hesitant to try Thai food. Luckily he feels right at home eating Japanese and Chinese food which are widely available. Today we had our first big success as he tried, and liked, Pad Thai.  I am hoping this is a harbinger of things to come and he will be more open to trying new food (that or starve!). I've also learned how to order food so that it is not spicy (Mai phet na kha) so that increases zac's confidence level. 

I'm really enjoying learning to speak Thai and try to use a few new words every day. It is a beautiful language, and relatively simple grammatically, but tonal so hard to pronounce. In Bangkok there are a lot of signs in English, and many people speak some English, so a few Thai phrases go a long way!

Tomorrow we are heading to Khao Sok, a national park jungle, and staying at the guest house where Paul (Susan's son) met his wife Lek. While I'm looking forward to seeing some nature, I will miss Bangkok as we have really enjoyed our time here. 

However, we will be back in Bangkok in a couple weeks en route to our next stop.