Cobra

I finally got to do something cool yesterday which made me feel a lot better about my overall Vietnam experience. I have been wanting to eat cobra for a while, and apparently, Vietnam is the place to do it, so I jumped at the chance to take a trip to the outskirts of Hanoi to chow on some snake. I had had snake before in China, but this was a whole new ballgame. Once we got to the place, they immediately brought out a snake and started thrusting it at the four of us wanting us to hold it. Of course I grabbed the thing and immediately it started looking at my hand holding its tail like it was going to bite me. This kind of freaked me out because I thought it was a Cobra and thrust it back to the handler. He laughed (must of thought I was a pansy) and told us it was only the "House Snake". We could buy that snake for 1 million dong (50 US) but we came for the Cobra so we made them go bring out the good stuff. The Cobra was much bigger and cost an extra 20 USD. It had been de-fanged, so it was no longer a threat. We walked over to our table and before we could even think about it, the snake had been cut open and was being dismembered. The first thing to come out was the heart. The heart was cut and put into a shot glass. One of us had to drink it, and none of us had really thought about who out of the four would get that chance. I was not going to let this opportunity slip by so I essentially took it and downed it. I let the beating heart sit on my tongue for a few moments before swallowing it. A very weird feeling. It tasted very bloody and quite odd I have to say. We then sat down and they staff began bringing out red and yellow shots. The red were rice wine mixed with cobra blood, and the yellow were rice wine mixed with bile. Both were very disgusting, but I think that the rice wine was what made them so bad. Very potent stuff. Apparently, the blood is good for the male libido and the bile is good for the stomach (at least that's what they told us). We then proceeded to get around 6 courses of various snake dishes, ranging from snake ribs barbecued to snake skin and liver stir fry. They were all very good, but the spring rolls that they made with snake meat were definitely my favorite. Overall, it was a great experience and I am definitely glad I did it. When else will I ever be able to say that I ate a beating Cobra heart. Definitely a cool experience. And, to top it all off, the sun is finally out which is amazing. I leave tonight for Hue so it is only going to get nicer out. About time.