Vietnam Adventure: December 2012

Leaving Asia without trying some weird food wouldn’t be a real experience of Asia. There is a big choice of weird food you can try since Asians eat literally everything. I’m always up for trying weird fruit and vegetables, but when it’s about eating animals then I become a bit picky. In Vietnam they eat dogs and cats. They have farms of dogs and they kill them in a really cruel way since they want their meat to be full of adrenalin before they die (apparently then it tastes better). People have different opinions about this, some of them say that dog is a friend, others say that dog’s meat is like any other meat. I could agree with both, but still - I will never eat a dog or a cat and I don’t support how they kill them.

Snake village in Hanoi is definitely a place for trying weird food. Only the idea of eating snake was disgusting to me, but I still decided to do it. First thing that we needed to do when we arrived there was to choose a place where we will eat. We checked out one place where the guy was showing us which snakes he has but it was too expensive so we went to another place.

The other place had more reasonable price. Small snake was around 38$ and Cobra was 47$. There were 7 of us so we decided to share Cobra.

The process of killing a snake is a bit disturbing. First they turn it's head and make a small cut near the heart to squeeze the blood.

Then they take out the heart and intestines.

Then they cut their heads and peel off the skin.

This is the Cobra that we bought.

You eat the heart while it's still beating.

Shot of vodka with snake blood had no special flavor.

After having shots they brought us a bunch of food! All of this food made only of 1 Cobra. It was actually really good but nobody was really enthusiastic about eating it.

I tried every single meal but just tried, I didn't really eat it. Afterwards, I was still hungry so I went to eat some real food. Still, it was an interesting experience.

Ninh Binh province is located around 100 kilometers from Hanoi. Topography of it consists of limestone mountains with caves and grottos, delta raised by Red River Silt and a coastline with the length of 18 kilometers. The shortest description of Ninh Binh I can think of goes like this: It is like Ha Long Bay, with only difference that it is on the countryside. Well, in my personal opinion, it is way more than Ha Long Bay because you can actually see how local people live. You can rent a bicycle and ride through endless rice fields and encounter goats, cows, buffalos or ducks on the road. You can see in what kind of houses local people live, and since they are very friendly maybe they will invite you for a lunch. Other good thing about this province is that it is still not so touristy.

I went to Ninh Bing with two Vietnamese girls who stayed at my place the night before our trip. I would say that this is when my trip began because I found out a really interesting thing. While I was brushing my teeth the two girls were watching Vietnamese channel on TV and then suddenly I heard Croatian music. I was beyond surprised. When I asked them about that song they told me that it is really famous in Vietnam and everyone knows it. The only thing they didn’t know that that is a Croatian song. It is quite interesting how they like to listen songs in languages that they don’t understand.

Next morning we woke up at 4.30AM to catch our bus. So far, travelling by local busses in Vietnam has been quite an adventure, and it is funny how they always succeed to surprise me with new funny things. The bus was packed with Vietnamese staring at me and thinking what the hell is she doing in this bus. Should I mention that Vietnamese are a short nation and I am pretty tall so sitting in their busses is not really comfortable for me and I never know where to put my legs. The bus was really old and our driver was (as usually) driving in Vietnamese style. Let me put it in other words-like a lunatic, without caring or thinking about rules, other people in traffic and using horn all the time. Since our bus was very old, whenever we crossed over a hole in the road our bus slammed so bad that we thought our stomach would jump out. I was watching other drivers through the window when all of the sudden flock of ducks appeared on the highway. What to say? After that, one lady started vomiting in a plastic bag and she gave the bag to her husband who threw it out through the window. I really hope that it didn’t fly into a motorbike driver.

After arriving in Ninh Binh city, the first thing we visited was Bai Dinh pagoda, the biggest pagoda in Vietnam. To reach the top you need to climb upon 300 stairs. Visiting Bai Dinh pagoda is not a really touristy thing to do, but in my opinion it is worth visiting because it's really beautiful.

On the left is Buddha form the past, in the middle is Buddha from the present, and on the right is Buddha from the future. People choose in front of which Buddha they want to pray.

Sitting in Vietnamese style.

After Bai Dinh pagoda we went to Trang An to take a 3 hour sampan ride. It was a really good choice! It is stunningly beautiful and very peaceful.

In the evening we found a guest house. It is funny how very often you can find spelling errors of basic vocabulary in English.

Next day we went to Tam Coc, another town with similar landscape. They also offer a sampan ride but this time we decided to rent bicycles for 2,5$. It was the best choice we could have made. Driving a bicycle through rice fields was something I wanted to do for a long time, and my wish finally became true.