Sunday 6 January
Met Nam at 9.30am and had a traditional breakfast of Pho Bo (beef noodle soup) which was delicious - little did I know that was the last semi-normal thing I would eat today...
Went back to the venue again before spending some time sightseeing - we skirted around Uncle Ho's mausoleum but no matter which angle we tried to approach it from, a security guard would appear and wave us off! Checked out Van Mieu, the Temple of Literature, where Confucian scholars received their official education since 1070 - old school tablets with ancient Chinese inscriptions on the backs of stone tortoises.
After midday we drove across the river to a snake ghetto, and pulled up to a specialty restaurant where we were all in for a treat. The ground floor had all sorts of live and pickled animals - the freakiest being an armadillo-like creature with its bloodshot eyes rolled back in a disgusting death pose. Live snakes slithered and my stomach churned with the thought of what was to come...
Our meal began with a guy killing the snake in front of us, squeezing the blood from its throat into a container, and squishing out the innards which I take it weren't that tasty. A few minutes later we were each presented with two shot glasses - one blood red and one transparent yellow. It took me several minutes to build up the courage to down the blood, but I did in the end, surprised to find out it was mixed with some sort of liquor, which took the lead in terms of taste. The yellow stuff turned out to be bile, but again I managed to keep my breakfast down, and from here on in I was able to relax a little.
A selection of about ten dishes followed, each made from snake meat in a different way - my favourites were the crushed bones on a hard tortilla-type thing and grilled spine meat. The food was accompanied by snake wine and intensely flavoured raw vegetable leaves - all in all it was a full spectrum flavour assault and probably the most memorable, if least comfortable, meal I've ever had.
In the afternoon I got some well-needed down-time back at the hotel before bouncing off again to the party - tickets were being touted on the street at the entrance and the buzz was palpable. Proceeded in and talked with Andrew, the man behind it all, gave an interview with Hanoi TV and shook hands with one of the biggest rockers in the capital. As the crowd built up and the security steeled themsleves, we cracked our first Tiger of the day and it went down a treat.
Soon after, the perimeter was breached but the kids weren't worried about the guards laying into them with batons, just crazed for the metal that was about to be laid down. As I sat down in the VIP area with Vietnamese rock gods on my left and government officials on my right, I couldn't help but be thankful for the ice cold beer that was handed to me as the crowd in front turned into a thronging mass of fist-pumping rockers.
The show that ensued was flawlessly produced, massive in scale and extremely loud. Long hair, Gibson flying Vs and vocals deep from the throat dominated, and all I could do was smile, enjoy and sip quietly. Partied up front with some young kids, to the side with the sales team, and up back with Nam. After all was said and done the show was a phenomenal success, and I joined the organising team afterwards for steamboat, where I laid into the pig brains and doufu. Good night!
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