This really is a tough one to watch . Ryan, a fellow American volunteer and my roommate here at VPV, took this video.

He met up with a local Vietnamese lady, Rosie, who knew a friend of his back in the states. He's obviously a pretty adventurous sort, and she took him to a very upscale, exotic Vietnamese restaurant where they dined on ten various snake dishes created from the live snake of your choosing. This restaurant is located in the area known as Snake Village, where most all the stores & restaurants specialize in snake related products.

That’s the easy part….

He took this video & it shows the preparation of a few of the ten dishes. It begins with the killing of the snake, the draining of the blood into a glass, vodka is added and voila...you have just had your first course.

Next you will see the snake heart being cut out and removed to a plate… it continues to beat on the plate long after until it is dipped into that unknown green pus-like glass of liquid that stops the heart from beating. Ryan then ate the heart, tho it was so rubbery that it was nearly impossible to chew and he actually couldn’t get it down.... had to push it down with a pickle. The heart is supposed to be swallowed whole, but he needed to chew into it as it was too big to swallow whole for him. I suppose the pickle did the trick... fortunately he didn’t have to fully chew the heart which probably would have led to squirting blood dripping from out of his mouth.

Total cost for the ten course meal, with drinks for two, was 250,000 Vietnamese Dong or about $12 U.S.

Most all the volunteers, including Ryan leave for various places tomorrow. I will stay and work tomorrow, but will leave Saturday for a short 1 night/ 2 day cruise in exotic Halong Bay on a Vietnamese Junk. This is the link to my boat in Halong Bay  http://cruisesinhalongbay.com/halong-tours/dragon-pearl-junk/

After that, I'm off to the mountainous region of Sapa... It will be a bit cold, but it is supposed to be gorgeous... taking a night sleeping train from Hanoi to Sapa and I plan to stay in this hotel... landscape looks great.
   http://www.topasecolodge.com/landscapes.html

Oh, and tonight I am having dinner with the two college girls who walked me across the street on my way to Old Quarter earlier in the week.

Loving this trip!