Thai cuisine is admired and appreciated worldwide, so it’s not surprising that learning to prepare a few dishes is high on the list of priorities for many visitors to the country. While there are courses on offer in every tourist town in the country, Chiang Mai is particularly popular because of its wide range of courses available.

You can study a half-day course, a full-day course or several-day course, with prices around 800B-1,500B for a basic day’s course. This usually involves a visit to a fresh market to buy ingredients, then students follow the teacher’s instructions to prepare 4-5 dishes. Finally you get to taste your own creation.

At the top end, resorts like the Four Seasons in the Mae Sa Valley (tel: 053298181; www.fourseasons.com/chiang) offer superb facilities in the form of individual cooking stations, as well as top chefs teaching their skills, though this will set you back over 6,000B for a day.

At the lower end, there are hundreds of guest houses and restaurants that offer cookery courses as an optional activity.

Of the independent cookery schools, the Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School at 7/2 Moonmuang Road (tel: 053206388; www.thaicookeryschool.com) has a good reputation for reliability. Here a one-day course costs 1,450B.