Exploring north Vietnam and eating snake

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After arriving back in Vietnam after our short trip into Laos, we learnt that we had a lucky escape from typhoon Ketsana as it hit the centre of Vietnam just after we left there even though no one told us that it was heading in our direction. Apparently Hue and Hoi An which we had visited a few days earlier were under 4 feet of water after the typhoon hit so it was a good job we left when we did! Back in Vietnam we headed north, first stop was the city of Ninh Binh. Whilst in Ninh Binh, we rented out two motorbike drivers for the day who took us wherever we wanted to go, the roads were fairly quiet there so it was fairly safe to drive around. All around Ninh Binh are loads of little limestone peaks in the rice fields and theres also a lot of caves to explore. We spent a day driving around on the back of the bikes and had a great time. In a place called Tam Coc about 10km from Ninh Binh, we got to go on a 2 hour boat ride between all the rocks and even into some caves which we really enjoyed. Amazingly, the guy in our boat was rowing with his feet! The best bit about Ninh Binh and Tam Coc was the fact that hardly anyone was there, we hardly saw any other tourists all day which was refreshing as most of the other good places in Vietnam seem a bit overcrowded with people.

After Ninh Binh, we headed further north to Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. Hanoi is a huge city, now one of the biggest in the world and its extremely busy as you'd expect, however, the traffic doesnt seem as bad here as in Ho Chi Minh City, probably because its spread out over a larger area. In the evenings in Hanoi, everyone sits at the side of the road on little plastic chairs and enjoys a few glasses of Bia Hoi which only costs 9p a glass, apparently the cheapest beer in the world. Near to Hanoi is a place called Halong bay which is one of the most popular places to visit in Vietnam. We booked ourselves onto a 2 day boat trip around the bay where we would spend the night on the boat. The boat we stayed on looked like an old pirate ship and it was a really fun two days we spent on the water. Halong bay has similar scenery to Tam Coc which I mentioned earlier, apparently there are about 2000 limestone islands sticking out of the water. Apart from sitting on the boat admiring the scenery, we also went kayaking and swimming in the sea and went to visit a floating village. The people on the floating village are born there and most of them live there all their lives without ever going on land! On the final morning in Halong Bay, we went to visit big cave system in the side of one of the islands and then we headed back to Hanoi.

Back in Hanoi, we've just returned from eating lunch where we went to visit an area about 7km outside of Hanoi called Le Mat which is known as 'snake village'. In Le Mat, there are loads of snake farms which raise snakes for eating. We chose one of the restaurants and the guy who worked there brought to us our lunch alive, a big cobra! After letting us hold the snake, he then killed it and started to prepare it which was amazing to watch as he did it so skillfully and quickly. Whilst the snake was cooked we got to drink some of snake blood mixed with vodka and I had the privilege (or not), of eating the snake heart raw, yum yum. The cooked snake was actually really tasty, there were several different dishes such as some of the meat inside spring rolls and then some of the skin which had been fried. Also, we had a soup made from the snake meat and a few other little dishes. Eating the heart was pretty horrible but the rest of the cooked meat was delicious and definitely worth trying.

I've just read on the news that theres also a typhoon which just hit Tokyo where we were a few weeks ago so I hope we keep managing to avoid them! Bye for now.

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Photos

Me at Tam Coc
Me with my stupid beard sitting at the top of one of the many limestone peaks in Tam Coc

Halong bay boat
A boat similar to the one we spent two days on at Halong bay

Comments

[Alyson]

Snake?
Like the beard. Guess shepherds pie will be a bit tame after snake heart and blood! love mum x

[Margaret M]

Thanks
Hi Thnks for interesting blog entries -never fancied Vietnam before but having seen your descrition of limestone peaks and caves has given different persepctive on it - Wouldn't fancy eating the snake though -not even like looking at them. Impressed you did some walking in Laos keep enjoying your trip and we'' continue to enjoy your blog Margaret