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Cobra Heart and Blood.
Just as we planned we done absolutely nothing yesterday. We stayed in our room for most of the day watching films and catching up on some blogging. The only time we ventured out was to have a late lunch. The receptionist asked us in the morning where we were going and laughed when we told her back to bed.
We got up at 7:30am this morning. We bumped into Dani on the stairs so we had breakfast together. She was on her way to Bangkok this afternoon so we decided with the few hours we had left we would all go to a town not too far away where we could eat Cobra and drink it's blood.
We were all a bit anxious about doing it but it's just one of those things you have to do when your in Vietnam. So we got a taxi from our hotel and drove forty five minutes out of Hanoi to a small town called La Mat. We were dropped off outside a really big restaurant that had about twenty bird cages hanging outside. The staff were quick to greet us and already knew why we were there. We sat down and they showed us their food menu. They had everything on offer from field mouse to pigeon and turtle to snake. We asked how much for the snake. They wanted to charge us 1.2 million VND! It was too much, we decided to leave and they kindly pointed us in the direction of another restaurant.
We came across a large sign with a picture of a cobra, it had an arrow pointing down an ally way so we followed it. Eventually it lead us to a house tucked between small ally ways and houses. The owner quickly asked us to sit down at a table in his garden, then he brought out a large snake from a bag and quoted us 700,000 VND. This was still too much for us so we asked him if we could pay only 500,000 VND. He wouldn't change his offer so we left to find another restaurant.
We got back onto the main road and asked in a couple of small restaurants if they served snake or knew somewhere that did, no one spoke English. Me and Dani tried our best to do snake impressions so that the locals could understand us, it was like a game of charades. We couldn't have been very good though because nobody knew what we were doing lol.
Eventually one guy understood! He drew us a map and pointed us in the right direction. The restaurant wasn't far and like the others there was a big sign out the front with an image of a cobra, as well as pigeon and turtles.
The tall building had traditional Vietnamese architecture, the corners of the roof curled and were painted red, the rest of the building was painted yellow. Inside there was a large spiral staircase leading to the main restaurant area. We sat down by the entrance while the staff went to find someone who could speak English. Opposite us were large cages full of animals waiting to be eaten. They had snakes, turtles, geese, birds, ducks, fish, frogs, eels and a really cute piglet. The pig stuffed his little snotty nose through the bars and stared at us. I went over and it immediately started wagging it's little tail like a dog would when it's excited. I wanted to pet the pig but everytime I got too close it moved to the back of the cage. The pig was nervous but curious too. Then suddenly as I turned around a larger pig was being brought through the restaurant on a spit, already barbecued. If I was the small pig I would be feeling nervous too!
Moments later a lady came over and told us how much they would charge us for one snake shared between the three of us. She told us 400,000 VND which is about £12 total! We were happy with the amount so agreed and sat upstairs.
Two girls were serving us. After they brought us our water we heard a lot of banging on the floor above us. We joked that they were probably killing the snake. Around us there were large pots with cloths covering the tops. We think there may have been snakes in them but we dared not go find out lol.
When the banging stopped the girls brought us our cobra blood in a bottle mixed with whiskey. There was a root in the bottle for us to stir it with and a shot glass each laid out in front of us. We were also given a bottle of green stuff, we still don't know what it was but it tasted like whiskey. We left the blood until after we had eaten.
The snake was served in four different dishes. Soup, leaf snake rolls, chopped up (thats what the banging was) with a crispy pan cake and spring rolls. We could only afford the one snake so we let Chris eat the heart. It was supposed to come out beating but we think it took too long for them to bring it over. It looked disgusting! Chris wasn't bothered by it and chewed the heart up like it was just a piece of chicken. He said it was like eating a piece of raw meat and that it didn't have much flavour. The blood had curdled by the time we had finished eating so we had to give it a stir first. Me and Dani were still nervous about drinking the blood. We asked the girls to take a video and photo of us shotting the blood together. I don't think they had ever used a camera before because none of the videos came out but we did get some photos.
It wasn't as bad as we thought it would be. It tasted of whiskey with a thick texture!! Strangely it made us all feel a bit giddy afterwards.
We couldn't finish the whole meal so we paid up and got a taxi back to the hotel. The taxi driver got lost and we watched the meter go up and up. When he found our road we were expecting him to try and charge us more but to our surprise he actually charged us less!
We headed in then said good bye to Dani. It was lovely to meet her and hopefully we will stay in touch and maybe cross paths in our travels again.
We've just collected our washing so we finally have clean clothes for Hong Kong next week. We are both excited about going now and I get to celebrate by birthday over there!
Our plan for the rest of the day? More films, dinner then sleep.
Charlotte & Chris
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