January 31st.  I drank snake rice wine yesterday.  On the way to the home stay, we stopped to see how wine is made.  The large glass containers all had snakes fermenting in the wine.  Our local guide, a young woman, pointed out the different kinds of snakes in the wine and took a hook and lifted one out of the container to show us.  The person who worked at this place handed out samples in little blue and white "thimbles".   These are about half the size of a shot glass, maybe less.  Anyway, most of us tasted it, Stella opted out.  It had an after burn, kind of like scotch or tequila does.  Not something I would order anywhere.  Then it was off to see how they make puffed rice and rice candy and caramels.  We had tea before we got back on the boat.  Another cage with snakes in it. 

On the way back to Saigon, we stopped and walked through the market where we got off the boat.  Lots of fish, still flopping around, live chickens, live ducks, baby chicks and baby ducks.  Vegetables, fruits, meat, snakes, flowers, you name it, they had it.  The market covered about 3 city blocks.  It had about a five foot walkway between the stalls that the local people use as a thoroughfare for motorbikes.  All in all, chaos. 

Road construction had us stopped for 40 minutes in traffic and then we finally inched our way up to where it was down to one lane over a bridge.  The bus driver must have had to be somewhere because after that we zoomed down the road.  It's beautiful here with all the trees and everything is green.  Humid, but about 70 degrees so not too bad.  A lot of the Vietnamese people are all bundled up in coats, with hoods, and gloves on.  The guide said that people here want to be white so they cover up, and it's a little cold to them.  Brown skin is a sign that you are a farmer or work outside, white skin says that you have a good job working inside.

Tonight we had our farewell dinner at a restaurant that trains disadvantaged kids for jobs in the food industry.  It was excellent.  Reid tries to do this wherever there are programs like this.  Before we went, we had happy hour at the hotel and discussed what we liked most about the trip.  The people, the caves, Halong Bay, the home stay, all were mentioned. 

Tomorrow, we leave for Siem Reap, Cambodia.