Goat Legs Marinated in Rice Wine

Trip Start Aug 18, 2003

Trip End May 28, 2004

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Flag of Vietnam Hoa Binh, Vietnam
Monday, October 20, 2003

There are 53 Ethnic Minority groups recognized in Vietnam, most of which live in the Northern Mountains or Central Highlands of Vietnam. This past weekend a group of us had the chance to visit one of these ethnic minority villages and interview some of the farmers. It was an amazing opportunity because very few foreigners are allowed to enter these villages, let alone the provinces they're in (a province is like a "state" in the US). Our first stop was a visit with the head honcho of the district we were entering, Hoa Binh. It was quite an honor to meet him since he's in charge of about 22 communes (Each district consists of 20+ communes, each commune is made up of 4-5 villages, and each village holds around 500 people). It was he who had the authority to grant us entry into the villages, which simply meant giving us a personally signed, handwritten "letter of introduction" stating we were legally allowed to be in the province and village, as well as our names and passport numbers - they're pretty serious about keeping foreigners out. Before we got this "letter of introduction," though, we were invited to have lunch with him. Now, when in the countryside, entertainment becomes scarce. To liven things up, its become customary to drink copious amounts of homemade rice-wine (vodka), ESPECIALLY when you have guests. We were most certainly guests, and the head honcho most certainly liked his liquor (he also seemed to take a liking to the girls in our group). No sooner had we been seated then were the shot glasses being raised.

Girl walking the family water buffalo

After finishing a few 1-liter water bottles full of wine, our host brought out the crem de la crem of rice wines... his homemade "goat leg rice wine," a 5-liter plastic bottle full of rice wine and 2 deer legs (hoof, hair and all). That'll put hair on your chest, and anywhere else you're lacking too.

**Rice Wine Side Note: The night before Hoa Binh we went to a "snake village" located on the outskirts of Hanoi. As the name suggests, we feasted on snake. Pretty wild. The night started by witnessing the snakes slit open right in front of us, with the heart carefully put aside and the blood poured into cups. The house specialty (other than snake) was their concoctions of rice wine. We started the meal off with a shot of snake blood + still beating snake heart. Whew! In addition to the 12 different snake plates we had (all parts of the snake cooked in different ways), we drank a total of 6 different variations of rice-wine. A variation is made by "marinating" an animal part in the liquor. We had: snake blood, oversized hornets, snake spinal cord, snake bone, snake male anatomy (balls), and snake bile (from the liver) mixed/marinated in rice-wine. The worst tasting was the snake bile (green), the best being the oversized hornets (I think they put honey in it)... though after the first 3 shots you don't really notice the taste anymore.

After "lunch" and cocktails with the district "mayor," we made our way to "Tat" village, "1 of the 100 poorest villages in Vietnam." I hate to romanticize it (because life is damm hard there) but the village seemed almost idyllic with its beautiful thatch roof houses standing on wooden stilts, bamboo fences, and scenery straight out of a Lord of the Rings book (houses in thin valley and tall, lush green mountains as far as the eye can see).

Pig House

This was the real thing, real farmers living in a mountain village that hasn't been exploited by the all to real tourism industry. When we arrived we were expecting to meet with the village head, but it turned out he was wasted drunk with other farmers in the village b/c they had just finished thatching a roof (roofs are rethatched (with sun-dried palm leaves) every 4-6yrs, a roof takes 2 days to complete with the help of many men). The social network here is amazing - villagers band together to help re-thatch a roof at no charge, only asking that in return they receive the same help when they need their own roof replaced. The community is so tight because generations of the same family have lived here. In addition, after land was redistributed to households here in 1988, it's become almost impossible for anyone to relocate into the village because there's no open land to cultivate... it's all been given away already. After talking to the farmers you get the impression that they and their kids have no intentions of leaving their land, even though they work 7-days a week and make about $100/year. 75% of the crops they grow are for personal consumption, the rest is sold at a market an hours drive away (about a 1/3 of the households here own a motorbike, i.e. most don't have transport to the market). It was a pretty amazing experience.

This upcoming weekend will be only the second weekend I've been in Hanoi. I'm so ready to sleep in, relax, and explore the city nightlife. Tell you about it next time.