Eating snakes

I decided I'd go to the village of Le Mat, about 7km from dowtown Hanoi...it's called a village but is part of the greater city.

I talked to anice moto driver, and told him what I would be paying him, although he never really qupted a price, always saying something about he has many friends whenever I asked, and telling me I could decide.
I also asked him roughly how much it would cost me to buy a snake and have it prepared different ways...again not even an estimate.

So we get out there, fortunately he took most of the cold cold rain that started pissing down, and I was shown a cobra and some mountain snake. How much to have a cobra killed just for me, and then having its flesh prepared 7 different ways? 1.4 milliong dong. Just under $50...Yikes! The mountain snake would have been 700000. Jeepers I said. The guidebook I read said $10, well I only said it to myself.

Eventually I paid 200000 dong and said give me what you can give me. That included two types of snake wine...although they both tasted like whiskey. One had actual beasties floating in the bottle, the other didn't. I tried to find out what the difference was, but they just kept pointing to their balls and back and heart, I think telling me that it would make my various body parts strong.

My dish was barbecued sanke...supposedly "king cobra". It was really tasty, and yes it did taste a bit like chicken. Because I didn't pay the big bucks and therefore did not get to witness the snakes execution and teh subsequent sipping of blood (good for your everything I believe), it might have been chicken for all I know. It did taste a little different so I'll assume it was cobra.

In the end, I of course wish I had just paid the 700000 dong. it works out to just under $50 and although it would have been something else for my budget I'm sure I could have made it up...I've really over budgeted for Vietnam I feel. It was a long wet ride and paying 200000 for one dish seemed pretty dumb afterwards.
I guess I'll have to go to some other sanke restaurant, suck it up and pay the big money, and maybe stop regretting not doing it this time. Curses!!!!

And when the moto guy dropped me off and I paid him, he asked if I could pay 20000 more. NOPE. He wasn't doing it aggresively, I just think he realized he should have said something when I told him what he'd be getting.

Writing this is really bugging me that I didn't go all out. Lots of time to eat snake some other time in my life...