Snake Village

I'm so sorry it has taken me so long to blog. The internet connection was sketchy at best at our old hotel. I had to use the lobby's one computer to blog or email and it was so slow that I could have cross-stitched my name into all my underwear during the time that it took to download one email. It wore me out and I rarely had the energy to blog after that.

Now that we are in a new hotel I promise to be better at giving blog updates.

Not much has changed on the visa front since our last blog. We have been told that we need to wait while they investigate back in the province that Jonah was born in. It has been difficult to wait day after day for information and to receive nothing. I like Vietnam, but I want to come home. I'm pretty sure that Jonah thinks that his home is the hotel. I'm looking forward to settling him into a room, a highchair and a car seat. He won't know what hit him!!!!

Even though the wait has been difficult, we have been able to see and do some pretty amazing things. Yesterday we took a day trip to number of villages on the outskirts of Hanoi. About an hour ride by bus, we stopped first at the Furniture Village. Vietnam has amazing furniture. The furniture is huge, intricately carved and heavy. At one warehouse that we stopped at, we talked to the owner who said it often takes 3 months to carve one chair. While we talked with her, we watched a 16 year old boy carve intricate designs into the legs of a chair. It was amazing to watch him make all the patterns with a small set of hand tools. I can't say that it would be a job that I would want.

After Furniture Village we stopped at Snake Village. Snake is considered a delicacy in Vietnam and Snake Village raises snakes to use for food and wine. Yes, I did say wine. In Vietnam you can drink something called snake wine. After a cobra is a decent size, it is killed and coiled up into a bottle. Then the bottle is filled with rice wine. After the snake and the rice wine intermingle for awhile, the bottle is opened and consumed. Yep, you heard me. You drink wine that a dead snake has been sitting in.

At the village we walked around to the different stores that sold snake wine and raised snakes. At one particular store we paid the owner about $10 and he took his cobras out for us to look at. We all stood on his driveway with cameras in hand and watched as he placed the cobras on the ground about 12 feet away from us. I have never been so scared/fascinated about something so dangerously close to me. Crazy!!!!!!!!!! Mom was awesome. While I cowered by the potted plants she had her video camera going non-stop. You'll have to see the footage to believe it.

After the snake show we went to eat at a restaurant that specialized in snake cuisine. Here we watched a man kill a snake, cut out his heart (that kept beating), take what we think was the pancreas out and drain its blood. For what reason you ask? So we could eat it. All of it.
At the dinner table we watched as the man cut open the spleen, drained the juices from it and poured it into a glass. He then mixed the juices with rice wine, stirred it a little and poured it into our shot glasses. Bottoms up............. Let me just say that it helped clear the sinuses.

Next came the snake blood that was mixed with rice wine. I passed on this one, but Mom was a trooper. I have a great shot of her drinking her snake blood wine.

For dinner we had many regular stir-fry dishes and then a few snake dishes. The snake stir-fry was quite good and the snake soup was delicious. I don't think I'll replicate any snake dishes at home, but it was well worth it for the experience!

Hopefully back at home you are all finding small ways to spice up your days.

I drank snake bile today, what did you drink?