But all that hard work pays off, and the final result, a Penang Pork Curry, certainly hits the spot for Willard! Don't fall asleep yet! You've got another 5 dishes to cook!

And with a little help from Willard's now considerable expertise in the field (being "Teacher's Pet" obviously helps too, we think) his companions also manage to reach an acceptable level of competence.

And so Willard settles down to his first self-cooked Thai lunch. And by this time we all know why so many people on Flyertalk have recomended this school - their combination of skilled demostration, humour and firm discipline (AUGH! you've burnt your garlic again, throw it all away and start over!) make this by far the best cookery school of any sort we've experienced, with many of our fellow students today doing multi-day courses covering a wide range of Thai styles of cooking! If only we had the time....

And Friday is mileage run day! Here is Willard checking into the somewhat under-sized Royal Executive Lounge in Chiang Mai. By this point, things had already started going horribly wrong, with over zealous Thai Ops having cancelled one of our two bookings and "helpfully" merged the remaining segments. To make matters worse, the 10:15 flight we are booked on is already showing a 25 minute delay when we check-in at the lounge, and since our onward bookings have been cancelled, we don't have a return boarding pass that would allow us to run for the gate for our first return flight.....

However, every cloud has a silver lining! This flight normally operates as a 747-400 plane, and we have managed to secure First Class seating on this sector, as a result of our Business Class booking and Star Gold status, which helps to justify the point of this "status run". If only bmi treated it's loyal customers half as well as Thai treats bmi's loyal customers! (Apologies for the dodgy focusing, I'm sure I told the camera to flash, but I think it had other ideas!)