A Provincial town called Tra Vinh

Kelly, Rebecca, Sophea, and I went to a small town about 4 hours southeast of Saigon. It was just what we were looking for: peace, quiet, good cheap food, and adventure. Rather than chronologically going through this, I am just going to share the highlights.

Day 2

Our trip to Ben Tre. Ben Tre is another small provincial town. The plan was to take a boat there, the hotel said it would be 1 hour and 20 minutes and that we would need to find a boat at 6:30am. We went there at this time and eventually found a boat, we were told to come back at 9am, and that it would be 100,000VND, not 50,000VND like our hotel said. We walked around the market, found fish hopping out of bowls, frogs trying to escape, turtles locked together on a stick, and one of the provincial foods, Ban Tet that a coworker recommended. It was a successful use of time before returning to the boat at 9am.

The negotiation

We go back and they wanted 100,000VND. I started to bargain at 50,000VND. The guy said no. Then we decide we can give them a little extra. So I say "bay muoi ngan," (70,000 VND). All of a sudden this guy doesn't speak Vietnamese and doesn't understand my Vietnamese. So then I repeat it a few times, no acknowledgement of understanding. So I count "Mot, hai, ba, bon, nam, sau, bay. Bay muoi ngan," (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 70,000 VND). I now named this guy "No Speaky Vietnamese." He still claims to not understand a word I'm saying. Then I tell him, "Chung toi khong phai la nguoi Viet. La nguoi Viet mua cho nam muoi ngan, nhung chung toi khong phai la nguoi Viet. Chung toi mua cho bay muoi ngan," (We are not Vietnamese. Vietnamese people pay 50,000VND, but we are not Vietnamese. We pay 70,000VND). The Vietnamese onlookers all start cracking up, they all know that the guy is still getting a deal from us. If we really want to, we could bargain it down to 50,000VND, but we're on vacation and just want to get on the boat and go. However, No Speaky Vietnamese still does not speak Vietnamese. So I go to the last resort, we show No Speaky Vietnamese 70,000VND. Now he cannot say he doesn't understand. So he agrees to our 70,000VND price.

The boat

Our boat is a cargo boat which we knew ahead of time. The unfortunate thing is we ended up leaving at 10am instead of 9am. Eventually we take off and we have a decent setup, three hammocks inside the boat, and 4 chairs we can move wherever we want. We sit outside, enjoy the view and wave to people. We really noticed during this trip that provincial Vietnamese people are very very nice. The boat continues and makes some drops along the way. We see literally mountains of old coconut shells along the way. Ben Tre is known for its coconut candy, so we presume that's why there's so many coconuts. There were seriously thousands upon thousands of them all along the rivers we went down. One of the cool things was when we were on the Mekong river, it started to rain so we went inside and everything was blowing around, my sandal almost went over board it was so strong. Captain George nearly lost his Gilligan hat, it blew off his head and we were all worried. He went over to it and got it before it blew away, we all cheered. Then we sat inside the boat and watched the rain, it was a really beautiful sight and it helped to cool things off. I even felt a little cold which is a very nice feeling to have in Vietnam. Now, the toilet. So the toilet is in the back of the boat, next to the kitchen. You open a door similar to a side gate door but much smaller. You step in and there's a square cut out of the floor. That my friends, is the toilet. Whatever waste we had to get rid of went straight into the river. Surprisingly, the rivers down here didn't reek of urine, feces, and other bile from who knows what like they do in Saigon. It was nice to see what looked like clean water, trees, and no high rises. Along the way we made many friends with onlookers working about their day. We'd wave to them and just about all of them waved back. It was fun, felt like a kid again on a road trip when you wave at other cars that pass by. Eventually, after a 5 hour boat ride that we thought would be 1 hour and 20 minutes, we arrive in Ben Tre.

Ben Tre

We spent a total of 2 hours in Ben Tre. We booked our hotel and had all of our things back in Tra Vinh. So upon arrival at Ben Tre, the first thing to do was to find a way out of Ben Tre and to Tra Vinh. I ditched the women and went to the bus station to find out the deal. After about an hour of mistranslations I find out there is a city bus that will take us to a ferry that will then take us to Tra Vinh. They said it would take us to Tra Vinh city too, not just the province. So, I meet up with the girls, we drink a beer together and it's time to go. The last bus is at 5:45pm. We take 4 different motor taxis to the bus station. As soon as we arrive, the bus arrives too, so we all jump on.

The City Bus

There are two workers in the bus, the money handler-female, and the door opener-male. The money handler tells us the price is 60,000VND. The nice lady at the bus station wrote down for me that it was 20,000VND. So, to make it short I just hand her the note. She accepts her defeat without any remorse or apology. We give her the money and we sit down. Sophea is the only one in a chair. Rebecca, Kelly, and I are sitting on the ground facing those in the chairs, we are next to the doorman. Along the way, a vagrant joins us. He sits next to Kelly who is on my left, I'm in the middle between Kelly and Rebecca. The vagrant sees us, and thinks GOLD! So he starts showing me his mouth (dirty black teeth), then also his hands and said something about money in Vietnamese. I just turn my head the other way, tired of people asking for handouts all the time. Later, he touches my knee, and wants to compare our feet or something, I turn back to look at the right side of the window. I did my best to avoid and ignore this guy. Later, he touches my knee again, smiles, and does a very ugly motion with his mouth and then mentions 3,000 VND. I return to my view to the right. The lady sitting across from us takes pity on me and tells him we don't understand and that he should stop touching my leg. I look at the doorman, he motions that I can punch the vagrant in the face, I have his permission. Us 3 all crack up. The vagrant continued to touch my knee a few more times, I told him no. The lady told him again too. I really wanted to point out to him that my girlfriend is there with us, but Sophea is asleep this entire time and has no idea what's happening. After about 20-30 minutes of this uncomfortable/awkward situation, the vagrant has arrived at his stop. As he leaves, I blow him a kiss to mess with him. Then I tell the bus "Di! Di! Di!" (Go! Go! Go!), but the bus isn't going. The doorman is trying to get more passengers. Luckily the vagrant doesn't come back onboard, instead he blows me 4 kisses back, of which only 1 I saw. I was enjoying my right side view once again. Everyone laughed on the bus and Sophea finally woke up.

Ferry

We make it to the ferry and the ferry is leaving as soon as we arrive. We pile on, find a restroom, then the ferry takes us to the other side. We are 18km from Tra Vinh town. I talk to a Vietnamese guy because we have no mode of transportation, then Sophea talks with a Khmer guy. The Khmer guy says there will be a bus coming soon that we could try and get seats on. There is also a bus in front of us, but we would have to stand. We decide to stick with the Khmer guy, the next bus shows up 2 minutes later, we hop on and get seats. A sweet deal from having no transportation, to getting comfortable seats in a traveling bus in 2 minutes. It also only cost us $2. We make it to Tra Vinh town and take a taxi to our hotel. In one day we traveled by six different modes of transportation: foot, boat, motorbike, bus, ferry, and taxi. Though we didn't get to spend much time at all in Ben Tre, it proved to be an interesting day.

Last Day

The last day was the big finale. It was time to eat snake and drink its blood. This is something I've wanted to do in Vietnam since I moved here a year ago. This was finally the day that I would do it, on a Monday morning. We went to the restaurant and ordered a snake. They said it would take an hour, they had to go buy the snake first. We told them we wanted to get a picture of it before they cooked it. Later the snake arrived. First it was in a white bag, but we couldn't really see it. So they took it out and put it in a large silver bin. The snake slthered out of the bin. All of us run away and the women scream. The snake stops and just sits there. A guy grabs its tail, Kelly snaps a picture and we go back to our table. Sophea tells us it is the King of Snakes, a python. We were all very thankful it wasn't a cobra since we didn't want it to bite us or put its venom into us. Shortly thereafter, my glass of snake blood arrives. If you get queezy hearing about blood, you may want to skip this part. I have a glass of blood and then I have to make my choice for the alcohol to mix it with. I wanted rice wine because that's what the characters use in One Evening After the War, my favorite Cambodian movie. They only have red wine, then Sophea suggests whiskey, but they only have a $60 bottle, so I finally end up with Hanoi Vodka for $2.50. I pour a few drops of blood into the shot glass, then pour the vodka in. I stir it and it's a nice pink hue. It actually almost looks like a cocktail shot. It's time now. I grab my glass, snap a picture and then I take it down. No chaser of course. It mostly tastes like alcohol, there isn't much of a blood taste to it. All of the women didn't want to partake. So on a Monday morning I quickly drink 7 shots of Snake blood vodka. By the end I did have a metallic taste in my mouth, much like the taste of blood. They cook the snake into two dishes, minced snake with herbs and snake soup. The snake soup was by far tastier and easier to eat. It had thicker meat and the bones were easier to pick out. We also ate frog curry and sauteed eel. It was indeed a provincial food day.

Drinking with the locals

After the conquering of the Snake and cementing my manhood. We go down the highway to find a small road to take a look at the countryside. We find a small road which leads us to a ladies shop. We speak Vietnamese with the lady and get some beers. We partake and eventually we have a 30 year old man with us, talking to us like we understand everything he says. We also have the seller and her neighbor laughing at all of us. This was by far one of the more entertaining parts, though I don't have a good recollection of what occured. I do remember having a really good time. It was eventually time to go, so we went back to our hotel and took the bus back to Saigon. It was a good 3 day weekend.

I like to say now that I've drank Snakes blood, I feel like a man amongst mere mortals, this must be the way Ron Burgundy feels every day.