Today began, as many questionable travel decisions do, in a bar.
“So you like a drink?” the barman asked.
“I don’t mind a tipple or two,” I replied, which was both true and wildly misleading.
He smiled.
“I take you to snake wine.”
And just like that, a casual afternoon became a five-hour expedition into the Vietnamese countryside.
The journey began aboard a boat that looked as though it had been commissioned sometime between the invention of diesel engines and the moon landing. It chugged its way up the Mekong Delta, pumping thick exhaust fumes directly into the passenger cabin as if carbon monoxide was part of the entertainment package.
I was handed a coconut, which I suspect served less as refreshment and more as emergency respiratory equipment.
As we drifted along, all I could think about was those old Vietnam War films. Every bend in the river felt like it should have been accompanied by the opening chords of Fortunate Son. Half the time, I expected Martin Sheen to emerge from the engine room looking emotionally exhausted.
Eventually, we were transferred to a second vessel. This one was a narrow wooden rowboat operated by a tiny Vietnamese woman who couldn’t have weighed much more than the backpack I was carrying. She guided us through a maze of canals lined with palm trees and dense jungle. Given her age, she may well have been a child during the war. Meanwhile, I was struggling to sit upright without accidentally capsizing us all.
We were issued traditional nón lá hats for the trip, those iconic conical hats you see in every travel brochure. I have to say, they’re brilliant. Practical and surprisingly flattering if your usual style leans heavily towards “middle-aged man trying not to get sunburnt.”
Compared to the diesel-powered floating sauna we’d arrived on, the canal journey was delightful.
At the end of the waterway, we pulled alongside a rickety wooden staircase. Climbing ashore required the balance of a gymnast.
At the top stood our destination, The Snake Bar, where Vietnam’s answer to tequila awaits.
Snake wine, or rượu rắn, is made by submerging an entire snake, often a cobra, into strong rice wine and leaving it to marinate for months. The alcohol neutralises the venom while allegedly extracting the snake’s vitality, medicinal properties and, one assumes, whatever poor life choices led the snake to end up there in the first place.
Our guide approached a large glass vessel and, with the casual confidence of someone reaching into a jar to collect biscuits, reached in and pulled out a cobra.
There are moments in life where you realise you’re a long way from home, and this was one of them.
The snake was lowered back into its alcoholic grave, and a ladle was dipped into the liquid, which looked remarkably similar to paint thinner.
A shot glass was filled and handed directly to me, where I was assured several times that I would not die.
This is never particularly reassuring, as nobody ever says, “Here’s a beer. You definitely won’t die.”
The fact it needed mentioning suggested death had at least entered the conversation at some point.
“Bottoms up,” someone said. Or as the Vietnamese prefer: “Một, hai, ba, vô!”
One, two, three, cheers and down it went.
To my surprise, it wasn’t terrible.
In fact, it was oddly smooth. Warm going down, with a slight burn and a flavour closer to tequila than wine. There was none of the swamp-water horror I’d prepared myself for. No immediate paralysis, hallucinations or the sudden desire to slither across the floor.
Just a pleasant warmth and the growing realisation that I had willingly travelled five hours by boat to drink a cobra.
Travel really is about broadening the mind.
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