I am travelling to Vietnam in October. I have heard about the snake wine but do I need to worry about seeing live snakes. i am kinda phobic about them!

We spent 2 weeks in VN last Feb and saw lots and lots of snake wine but not one live snake, not in the markets, restaurants or hiking in the north.

Good to know that some one have the same problem I do. This week i'm going for my first time to the east(China) and I'm so afraid from it...

Thanks for the info Peep. Very reassuring. Did you taste the snake wine?

Nope! It looks pretty nasty. A local guy told us it smells and tastes awful. They put the snakes in the bottle live, fill up the bottle with alcohol and drown the beasts. After a while the fat from the snake seaps out and is what makes it smell so bad (or so we were told). It didn't sound or look very appealing to me.

Snake wine tastes rather like what I assume turpentine would. I had a sip of it to be polite, and that will do me for the next hundred years or so.

Not to make you nervous, but I did see one snake slithering into the Mekong, but I was safely up on top of the canal boat and thought it was pretty cool. Otherwise, zip on the snakes. (Rodents, now....that's another story.)

But really, Vietnam is fantastic. Have a great time!

PS Hi, Peep!

Hi Amy!!

We saw rats, too. Only a few though and not in our rooms! (Don't ask Amy about rats in her room! ar ar)