The Woman Drank Snake Wine!

“This is the best. Here we have rice wine with seven poisonous snakes. Would you like to try?” Deb stepped up as the guide dipped a ladle into a large jar of rice wine with 7 dead poisonous snakes and some kind of bird. He served her a shot with a couple of other backpacker dudes and on the count of three they drank it up. I was very impressed. I don’t know many women who would drink snake wine. Not only was I impressed but I was almost inspired to do the same. Regrettably I did not try the snake wine for fear of hallucinating or something like that. Deb may have an aversion to rats and roaches but if the wine bottle has a cobra in it there’s no problem.

We spent 3 nights in the cool mountain city of Dalat before heading to Saigon and the Mekong Delta. While in Delta we broke my rule of not renting motorbikes in 3rd world countries. The average rate for an all day rental is $5 so we spent a day riding around the countryside and hiked up a big hill for generous views of the surrounding area. Deb and I made a good team for one bike. I focused on the driving while she navigated. Fortunately, I did not crash into a cow like India. Vietnam is virtually free of livestock on roadways.

The trip from Dalat to Saigon was breezy easy. We booked tickets on the nicest bus which costs us around $7.50 each for the 8 hour trip. We lucked out when it dropped us directly in the area we wanted to stay near Phan Ngu Lao. It’s a very busy area bustling with activity but we spied a quiet alley with several backpacker hotels and found and an amazingly tranquil place in the middle of it all. Our first impression of Saigon was much better than we expected.

Saigon is a city of 7 million people and 5 million motorbikes. You don’t see a lot of cars in Vietnam but motorbike scooters are everywhere thanks to the Henry Ford attitude of China. Seeing how the Vietnamese were all riding bicycles because no one could afford a car China approached Vietnam with an idea. Taking the numbers game into account China’s goal was to get as many people motorized by offering brand new motorbikes for $300. The country enthusiastically jumped all over the idea and motorbikes filled up the roadways in no time.

It’s wonderful that the people of Vietnam have a way to get around but it’s quite a challenge crossing the street. The best method is to simply walk into the traffic at a slow and steady pace. The trick is once you start moving don’t stop. Stopping could be dangerous. While crossing I get a sense of what it must have been like when god parted the Red Sea. Motorbikes closely pass without running into me. It’s quite amazing. It now feels perfectly normal to walk into 4 lanes of busy traffic with hardly looking both directions. It’s kind of magical in a way.

We spent a whole day in Saigon visiting Independence Palace, the former headquarters of the South Vietnamese Government, and the war relics museum. I was most fascinated by Independence palace as I’ve seen the film footage of tanks rolling through the gates when Saigon fell in 1975. Let’s not forget the 58,000 American soldiers and countless others who died trying to save what it stood for. It was quite interesting roaming through the meeting rooms, residence quarters, bunkers and war room where the American backed South Vietnamese tried to establish and hold on to Democracy. After the palace we headed to the War Relics Museum for the North Vietnamese take on the war.

I must admit that the War Museum was very interesting with its photos and American war relics, planes, tanks, bombs, etc, etc,. The most impressive displays were the photographs taken by number famous war photographers who caught some amazing images in the thick of battle. Naturally, everything was clearly slanted to make the North Vietnamese seem like wonderful people who were brutalized by the heinous American Aggressor. No doubt the war was horrible and very controversial but they failed to mention that many of their own people despised the North Vietnamese Communist aim. Also, I didn’t see anything about how the North Vietnamese rigged bombs on small children to blow up Americans etc. Stuff like that happened. I know an American Vietnam Vet who saw his buddy blown up right in front of him as he offered a village kid some chocolate. Nonetheless, the museum brings up some interesting questions about the war, which in my opinion, really never should never have happened. There are always two sides to every story and usually both sides bring up valid points.

Deb and I enjoyed the high energy vibe of Saigon minus one incident. I was walking along a street near the edge when I saw a 100,000 dong note laying on the ground (worth about $5.50). I casually picked it up and proceeded to walk on. I was a fair distance from other people and someone, most likely a tourist, had obviously dropped it. Well, if you’re a white person like myself walking down the street in Asia you’re always being watched by someone. As I began to walk on some local guy, who saw me pick it up, ran over and started yelling at me. He was very aggressive and I asked him if he knew who it belonged to. He made signals like he knew who it belonged to and was aggressively demanding I give it to him. He didn’t speak English and when I resisted giving it to him he grabbed my arm and pulled the money out of my hand. I really don’t like it when someone aggressively approaches and lays a hand on me. I almost knee jerk reacted by punching him but didn’t. I just let him have the money, gave him a bad look, and walked away. I really didn’t care about the money and if he would have approached me nicely and claimed he was the one who lost it I would have simply given it to him. I did the right thing by letting it go and wished I had never found the money in the first place. When we walked back down the street a little later I stared right at him. He shamefully turned away and wouldn’t look at me. What does that tell you? 100,000 dong may not seem like much to a Westerner but in Vietnam not many people are fortunate enough to make that much in a day. I would rather have given it to a beggar on the street than have a suspected liar and a thief aggressively pull it out of my hand. It was a very unpleasant experience but I quickly got over it with a beer. Often times the best thing is to do is forget about it and let Karma work it out.

We left Saigon on a two day packaged budget tour to the Mekong Delta that included a border crossing via boat into Cambodia and transportation to Pnohm Pen. The idea was to travel with a group of other backpackers and an English speaking guide to avoid anymore border problems.

It was on the tour that Deb drank snake wine. Where are we now? After an easy border crossing and beautiful boat ride up the Mekong River, Deb and I arrived in Pnohm Pen. It’s time to pay our respects to the horrendous tragedy of Cambodia. In the late 70’s over 3,000,000 people were senselessly murdered by their government. On arriving in Pnohm Pen Deb and I immediately notice a very different vibe from the rest of S.E. Asia……