The river Kwai and snakes blood

Well, the monotony of being sick passed very, very quickly. As soon as I felt better on Wednesday I jumped on a train to the town of Kanchnaburi 100km west of Bangkok. This towns sits on the river Kwai and is the home to the bridge that became the subject of a movie by the same name. This bridge was built during the Japanese occupation of Thailand using hundreds of thousands of prisons and slave laborers to complete the task. The bridge is such a small thing to have cost the lives of 70,000 allied prisoners of war.

I spent the night before at a small bungalow on the river. In fact if I had splurged a little I could have stayed in a floating house on the river. The town of kanchanaburi is slowly becoming a tourist hot spot due to the bridges fame but it still has an interesting mix of old Thai and new western feel. I spent the evening hanging out with a group of Thai guys who had moved out of Bangkok to open a tiny bar in the town. They spoke excellent English so we talked about Thailand and America while listening to some of the best music I've heard in a long time.

The trip really boosted my spirits and settled my nerves so I was much calmer when I entered the frantic city of Bangkok on Thursday. I spent the last two days hanging out with a group of Hilarius (and cute!) Dutch girls before I boarded my plane Saturday for Vietnam. Nothing in Thailand could prepare me for the pace and insanity of this country!

I met a PE teacher from New York on the plane and we got along pretty well so we decided to team up and face Vietnam together. As soon as we entered the main lobby of the airport we were accosted by taxi drivers. They got right in your face and saying no didn't deter them for a second. I went to the ATM to grab a million Dong ($66 US) and then we went to find the minibus to town. We asked an information lady how much we should pay and she said $2. When we fought our way through the mass of eager taxi drivers demanding $12 to drive us to town we found the bus. It was filled to capacity and we hunkered down in the back with our bags piled on us.

As we entered the road way I realized that all the complaining I'd done about Thai drivers was unjustified. Clearly, Vietnamese drivers are the worst drivers in south east Asia. I thought we were going to be in a accident about ten times in the ten minute drive to town. When we finally convinced our driver that we wanted to be dropped off the real fun began. We were swarmed by eager bike-taxi drivers and offers for cheap hotels and so forth. The driver asked for our 30,000 Dong and all I had was a 200,000 note. I gave it to him and he pocketed it with a look that said trouble was coming. As Doug and John (the other white passenger on the bus) argued loudly that they did not need a taxi, I watched as our driver got into the bus and started the engine. Thank god for crappy southeast Asian cars! As he began to drive away his minibus back firer and gave a me the chance I needed. I dove through the passenger door as he attempted to restart the truck. I yelled that he owed me 170,000 Dong and that I would not leave until he gave it to me. Five minutes of yelling between four Vietnamese and three foreigners and I got back 160,000. "Welcome to Vietnam!" I said to my new friends.

We finally found a place that had a room but they wanted $18, which is expensive for this country. When I saw the room though I nearly fainted. Air-con, TV, Queen bed with clean covers, private bathroom with a bath tub! After nearly three weeks living in tiny rooms with just a towel for a blanket this was the Hilton. After I was all clean and shiny (and had stopped jumping on the bed out of excitement) I headed over to a guest house across the street. As I attempted to go into the common area I was stopped by a hoard of people with blue and yellow sombreros. I asked what they were all about and the leader of the group said, "Do you wanna drink snake blood?" and I replied the way any good traveler does with, "Of course!" A sombrero was dropped on my head and we trekked off to find this most fabled Vietnamese delight.

To say that snake farms are not suited to 30 screaming tourists is an understatement. The look on the face of the owner was a very mixed expression. It was the fearful look of someone watching the mongol horde fall on their city mixed with the look of someone who has just won the lottery. By the end of the night this guy was going to be holding 4,500,000 Dong in return for a few snakes! Long story short, we proceeded to consume snake in every conceivable way: fried snake skin, snake ribs(think really small pork ribs. really small!), sauteed snake and various other dishes made of snake including a few soups. Of course, we also needed snakes blood shots. We drank a whole assortment of snake fluids that I won't go into detail about here but let's just say I truly feel I am more well acquainted with snakes anatomy than I ever thought possible.

I am sitting in a bustling hostel right now writing this before I plan my trip out to Ha long bay to cliff jump, cave walk and kayak. Hope you all are well and I will check in when I have more to report. To everyone let me say, "Good morning, Vietnam!"

Adam