Poo's kitchen: Learning basics of Thai cuisine at a slum school in Bangkok

Ritwik Sharma heads to a Bangkok slum to cook with its celebrity community chef, Saiyuud Diwong aka Poo

It’s 7.40 am and I have arrived at the pickup spot nearly an hour before time to attend a cooking class in Bangkok. I am not an early riser and yet I have undertaken a mini-odyssey that involved getting out of bed, taking a taxi from my hotel to the station and then hopping on to the express train to reach the arterial Sukhumvit Road in downtown Bangkok. All because the opportunity of learning the basics of Thai cooking from a celebrated community chef was too good to pass up.

Five others and I are first given a tour of