Drinking Snake Blood in Vietnam
Hanoi is well-known for its snake restaurants — restaurants that serve every body part of the snake. If you’re lucky, the snake will be a cobra; if you’re the guest of honor, you’ll be served the heart.
I could not imagine a better adventure in Hanoi!
Hanoi Backpackers Hostel runs trips to Snake Village most nights. For $15, you get to visit a traditional snake restaurant on the outskirts of Hanoi and enjoy the full snake dining experience. There’s a snake buffet, plenty of rice wine, and since it’s organized through the hostel, you know that there will be a great group of people.
Also…
You can help kill the snake.
You drink the snake’s blood and bile.
And if you’re truly adventurous, you can bite the heart out of the living snake, feeling it beat in your mouth for a few moments before you swallow it.
BEYOND badass!
When we arrived, we chose five snakes. These wouldn’t be the ones we would eat, but they would definitely be the ones that we killed.
The snakes were killed one by one by inserting a knife just underneath the head. Each snake was sliced open lengthwise, which gave these guys easy access to the blood and bile.
I initially wanted to eat the heart myself, but I couldn’t get myself to do it. Even I have my limits, I guess. Someday.
My friend Dave, however, did splendidly. He later told me he wasn’t sure whether he felt the heart beating in his mouth or if it was just his imagination.
Next, the blood was squeezed into glasses filled with rice wine. How amazing is that picture?!
The bodily fluids were poured into shot glasses for us.
On the left: snake bile and rice wine. On the right: snake blood and rice wine.
Down the hatch!
Honestly, it tasted more like rice wine — which tasted like whiskey — than anything else. But simply knowing that it was blood, blood that had been flowing through an animal only moments ago, was an insane rush!
We then feasted on a snake buffet. No part of the snake was overlooked — we even ate the bones!
To answer your imminent question, snake kind of tastes like chicken. Doesn’t everything, though?
Two of the best dishes:
Snake wrapped in seaweed. So juicy and tender.
Snake spring rolls!
We toasted, again and again, with shots of rice wine. (A word to the wise — rice wine is extremely potent. Treat it like liquor, not wine. Don’t do all the shots you’re offered.)
To conclude, I doubt PETA will be inviting me to hang out anytime soon. And I wouldn’t be surprised to lose a reader or two over this.
But I don’t care. My experience of drinking snake blood and bile was nothing short of extraordinary — and one hell of an adrenaline rush!
You can see my friends agreed!
Next time, I promise you, I’m going for the heart!
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At age 26, I quit my job to travel the world alone. I spent six fantastic months in Southeast Asia and turned my travel blog into a full-time business. Today, I travel full-time, going anywhere that sounds wacky or beautiful or interesting. My goal is to show YOU how you can travel the world on your own -- easily, safely, and adventurously. 
I love your pictures! You guys truly had a great time!!!
You know what I was in Vietnam a few months ago and I never got around to trying snake blood! I so wish I had! I will come back though!
You are awesome!!!! It’ll be a great story to tell the grandkids when you’re older haha.
- LAUR
Ha did the same thing when I was in Hanoi last year EXCEPT I ate the snake heart! Awesome experience for sure
Hi kate, we are currently in hanoi and leave on tuesday. can you please give me the name and location of the snake restaurant. even better im on twitter as darrenblewitt. cheers darren.
Darren, it was the trip through Hanoi Backpackers — go see them!
I certainly will not stop reading your amazing adventures, but now I have lost my taste for lunch….
That’s crazy but cool! Don’t know if I could bring myself to do it, but I’d certainly try!
Wow, you are insane!! I kinda want to try it now though, we’ll see what happens when I visit Hanoi later this year!
Hanoi Backpackers Hostel, Lauren. That’s all you need to know!
You certainly always live up to your name Kate!!!
. I felt so sorry for the snakes though 
. I love snakes (not to eat!) and would have a pet even if I didn’t feel sorry for the mice too.
I do hope you don’t lose any readers over this like you said you might. You have set out to do all the adventurous things and I am always so impressed that you really really do! I like that you aren’t shy about blogging about it and don’t leave out any details. It makes for fascinating reading.
I hadn’t heard about the snake killing in Hanoi. I must admit I was a little shocked that everyone was so into it. Do you think it’s because it’s a snake being killed and most people find them scary or repugnant. Do you think the people on your trip would have felt different if it was furry and cute? Would you have? I’m not judging… I am just interested to know what you thought. Maybe I am overly squeamish about eating things when they are still alive (I’m certainly not a vegetarian). I was so horrified by those guys on the amazing race having to eat the octopus tentacles while they were still moving. Ugh. The most alive thing I’ve eaten is a scallop and I don’t think they have too many feelings
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Thanks so much, Verity!
I remember that episode of the Amazing Race. Korea, right? And they did them like oyster shooters!
I think it was in Korea. It was so horrible to watch I want to cry… all those tentacles clinging to his tongue as he tried to swallow. Yuck!
My ultimate favourite Amazing Race moment has to be when that guy threw up into the bowl of superhot soup he was eating and had to continue and eat his own vomit. I think I might be a little sadistic when it comes to watching people suffer in the name of television (survivor is my favourite sure after all
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How flipping amazing was that experience! Gosh, you had my adrenaline pumping just reading your awesome post!
I don’t think there’s more any words to say, except AdventurousKate keep living it up!
You certainly live up to the name! I cannot wait to see what’s next! 
Cheers,
*A huge fan that may decide to try snake heart one day!
Thanks so much, Jessica! Glad you enjoyed!
You’ve got balls, Kate!! Looking at that photo of the dinner table, the snake dinners seem to be a guys thing to do! Respect for drinking snake blood, we definitely would’ve passed on that (even if we were not vegetarians). We will still keep reading your blog though
Hahaha, thanks! Yes, on this trip, I’ve truly become one of the boys!
I wussed out of this when we stayed at Hanoi Backpackers… I’m terrified of snakes put that together with a guy we met went the previous day and explained in gruesome detail how he ripped the heart out and ate it, even describing it still beating as it went down.. and it was a no!
Kudos
OMG – EWWWW!!! How could you possibly want to kill a living thing with your bare hands and tear out its still-beating heart with your teeth and eat it?!!!! Not only is that disgusting, but it’s SICK! Especially if you get some sort of sick pleasure out of doing it!
It’s weird the type of animals we’re sentimental about and not sentimental about. Like oysters, which I’ll eat live without a qualm. And snakes, as cold-blooded creatures, fall into that category for some…
I’m not entirely sure I’d do this, however. Because I think snakes’ nervous systems are close enough to ours to enable them to feel pain.
Glad you did, though, so I can see the photos…
Oysters are my favorite food — had some DELICIOUS, huge ones in Mui Ne!
wow…. i really like the pics….and hey maybe you should try China too if you’ve not
It’s interesting what Theodora says about different animals getting us more sentimental than others. I couldn’t imagine a hamster-eating experience being so popular. I’m a veggie, so it’s not something I’d do and I understand that this enables the people running it to have an income. But, it does seem a little savage to get so much enjoyment out of the killing of all those snakes. I’d love to know more about the background to this. Is it a tradition, or something cooked up for tourists? How are the snakes bred for this? How ‘humane’ is this method of killing them?
I think it was a tradition among one of the hill tribes in the north of the country. Then Anthony Bourdain featured it in his book about eating his way around the world — I forget the title, and also on TV — and it became popularised.
In Hanoi, unlike the dog restaurants which are a real and genuine part of Hanoi eating — another example of food experiences we’re sentimental about — it’s not something that Vietnamese would normally do.
Though snake blood tonics are an ancient tradition in Chinese medicine — and Vietnamese medicine borrows from that — this sort of ritual is largely for the tourists. Something you book through your guesthouse rather than happen upon in a back street.
This is the most heartless and cruel thing I’ve come across in a long while. The type of person who would go out of their way to participate in such truly horrible goings on must not know the karmic repercussions. These are sentient beings, and just because they seem so distant from our own makeup is no excuse for gleefully slaughtering them. One should always learn and examine the nature of a living thing. If you are a believer in any God, ask yourself if you think God made these wonderful, living, complex animals for you to kill, and ask yourself why it is that you derive pleasure in doing so. If you don’t believe in a God, the questions still stand. Please don’t support this behavior, and think hard and long before you kill any living thing.
I completely agree with everything you just said.
This sounds insanely disgusting but I would love to try it!
One day, the tables might turn and we might be the ones getting sliced open and eaten – be careful what you do for a great photo op.
I found your blog today and have completely wasted my day away reading it. I blame you and your entertaining tales 100%.
I keep hearing all these bad things about Vietnam but you portray it in a much better light.
Anyways, headed out next month and my first stop is Southeast Asia thanks for the additional inspiration.
Scott
Scott, reading that makes me so happy! Thanks a lot.
I had also heard many bad things about Vietnam, but I absolutely loved it. Maybe it’s the contrarian in me, but Vietnam is truly awesome.
I would definitely try snake but I don’t think I could drink any blood or bile. I certainly couldn’t eat the heart!
I popped onto the site from the feed because I was intrigued as to what the response would be from your readers. I’m actually quite surprised, as I thought there would be quite a lot of revulsion, but apparently snakes don’t feature highly on people’s cuddly animals list.
As someone else suggested, it would be interesting to see the reaction if you substituted the word snake throughout with “cat” or “dog”, and had photos of that instead. An interesting read though, and an interesting experience. I love trying out new food, although the slightly ritualistic nature of this does seem a bit weird. Still, it’s not like the cow that goes into my steak is slaughtered in a happy meadow surrounded by pipe playing fairies…
Ewwwwww! I’ve heard about this (and seen it on TV) but didn’t know you could kill the snake yourself!
There is a Vietnamese/Australian chef who has a tv show here in Australia and it shows him touring around vietnam. One night I was eating dinner and watching his show and he ate the heart and all…eeeewwwww…sorry but i hate snakes…you are a lot gamer than i am…
You know me and you know I couldn’t eat nasty snake! But way to go for muscling past the comfort zone and trying it out!
Blargh…..
Great adrenaline rush eh? If you google it, there are plenty of websites where you can look into going to shoot safari animals as trophies, skin dogs alive and do other ‘adventurous’ things that would give you an even better ‘adrenaline rush’. How about going to one of the bear bile farms in Vietnam or China and getting a paw cut off one of the bears there? That’s meant to be tasty and after all, why stop at one type of bile when there are so many endangered species you could drink the bodily fluids of?
Seriously, EVOLVE!
Lindsay, next time you’re in Boston, let me know — I’d love to take you out for foie gras-stuffed gnocchi at No. 9 Park.
Or we could be low-key and stay in. My mom makes the best veal cutlets.
Hey Kate, if I am in Boston, can we have both? I love veal cutlets and I don’t don’t think I’ve ever had gnocchi, hahaha…
Thanks for proving my point even further
Umm…gross. Hanoi off my list of places to see…check.
Safe to say you are not a vegetarian.
Loved the post! I have to say that I was also quite curious about the comments you would get, and as others, I’m surprised about only finding few negative ones.
Don’t let PETA find your blog
Can’t wait for your next post!
Thanks, Carla!
Wow, way to live up to your name there Kate! Not sure if I could have done that but that is definitely quite the experience. My parents brag on me that I ate rattlesnake when I was two but this is just a bit different!
Hey Kate,
That sounds really weird but I am sure an amazing experience! I am going travelling for my first time for 6 months to a year and Asia is my destination. I heard lots of bad and good hings about Vietnam but reading your blogs and website just makes me want to go even more!
Ignore these narrow minded people on here who say your disgusting. Its fine if a person is a vegetarian but HELLO! not everyone is (can’t say I personally agree with killing animals either although we eat beef etc in the West) and it might just be disgusting to us because we are not used to it whereas Vietnamese people in Hanoi are! Snake is what they eat! Some people should get a grip and not criticise someone for trying something dfferent. So I just wanted to say good on you for trying something different and I think you have inspired me to do the same when I go to Vietnam (well drinking the blood not killing the snake!). Also great site. Loads of content!!
Best Regards
Tom
Thank you very much, Tom! Go to Snake Village with Hanoi Backpackers if you can. GREAT experience!!
Yep I’m one of the ones you’ve lost!
Am quite disgusted and disappointed because I enjoyed your blog until now.
I believe in travelling and causing no harm to people or animal. Killing snakes and drinking their blood for your amusement – which lets face it, that’s exactly what it was for – does not fit in with that. An awful thing to do and to encourage others to do the same – so cruel!
Nice, a traveling sadist. Yes you should be ashamed but I doubt you are smart enough to know the environmental and just plain ethical reasons against partaking in this. Idiotic braindead bimbo.
Love it, Kate!
Heading to SE Asia in 3 weeks and I will most definitely be staying at Hanoi Backpacker’s Hostel and be taking part in this. I read this post for the first time this summer and since it has been on my life list. Keep rockin’, girl!
You will love it, Alyssa! It’s one of my favorite places to stay in the world.
It’s sad. Glad you fit it with “the guys” but you look just as idiotic as them. Killing for pleasure is not a possitve travel experience..
I’ll count myself as one of the disgusted and disturbed here – I keep “creepy-crawlies” as pets, and my snake was one of my babies. However, I couldn’t help laughing at the gnocchi and veal exchange. Well done, Kate.