Snake Village

Today is our last day in Vietnam, as we’re flying to Bangkok tomorrow. We’ve seen the whole country from south to north in just 3 ½ weeks. We haven’t exactly taken it slow, spending many days in one place just relaxing and doing nothing. We prefer to be on the go, exploring and experiencing as much as we can – but of course, there’s always room for lazy days. If you just want to lounge by the pool all the time, you might as well book a charter vacation. We kicked off the day by heading to Hanoi Towers, where we treated ourselves to some face masks again, which was incredibly refreshing – especially because of the heat. Back at the hotel, we borrowed a DVD player so we could watch one of the movies we picked up, A Quiet American, which is quite fitting since it’s about an American journalist in Vietnam during the war. Around lunchtime, we rented a couple of motorbikes for 25,000 dong one way, where we hopped on the back while the driver zoomed us out to Snake Village, where we planned to have lunch. Snake Village isn’t a big town; it’s just a street lined with houses that breed snakes and sell them to restaurants. If you come here to try the delicacy instead of going to a restaurant, you can save quite a bit of money. Just remember to haggle over the price. We managed to bring it down from 50 USD to 6 USD per person. There aren’t any restaurants in Snake Village, so you end up sitting in a family’s living room when the food is served. We were also allowed to step into their backyard to see the snakes they were breeding. The snakes were in a huge cage, and the man opened the doors so we could get a better look. One of the snakes was quick and managed to escape. We made a hasty exit because we didn’t want to get too close to the snakes! Our snake menu included soup, spring rolls, fried snake pieces, mini burgers, snake meat wrapped in leaves, snake sashimi, fried snake skin with chili sauce, and bread. They also offered snake blood mixed with whiskey, but we passed on that. The different dishes tasted unique but really good!