The Coolest Shit of All Time: Reprise

It's been over two years since I went to southeast Asia. Strolling down memory lane, I recently re-read the email I sent everyone I know from Vietnam detailing the most awesome experience of my life. I figured I'd reprint it here, if only to shamelessly glorify myself and continue living in the past. Here it is, dated February 19, 2008:

Ladies & Gentlemen:

Last night, in a matter of moments, I instantly became the coolest person I know. The following story is not for the faint of heart. If you are at all squeamish, please delete this email immediately. If you read on, do not claim I didn't warn you.

At the behest of rumors I had heard, the Vietnamese guy at the hotel I was staying at accompanied me at 6 PM to "O Sin," a snake house on the outskirts of Hanoi. A 65-year-old man with half an index finger (a cobra victim) greeted us and took us upstairs. He removed an enormous, hissing cobra from a bag and put it in another one. We went into a dining room. The man removed the cobra from the bag, held it up briefly for me to take a picture of, then smashed its head on the floor before taking a straight razor and slicing its chest open and removing its heart. A few minutes earlier, the man had poured some vodka into a carafe. As I was hyperventilating at this point, my memory is a bit fuzzy, but I remember the man draining blood from the snake into the carafe, then putting the cobra's heart into a shot glass on a dining table. I noted with horror that it was still beating as he poured vodka/snake blood over it, then poured a shot for himself, and indicated for me to drink.

With little hesitation, I FUCKING DRANK THE BEATING SNAKE'S HEART COATED IN ITS OWN BLOOD AND VODKA. Now that's a shot.

I, my hotel guy and the old man went on to finish the carafe of vodka and blood, and then killed another bottle of snake wine (some sort of strong booze sitting in a bottle with a dead snake) while a boy kept bringing out various dishes prepared from the cobra I had just seen murdered, cooked to perfection. As we devoured the snake, I looked up and noted a photograph on the wall of Vladimir Putin. The old man confirmed that the Russian leader had indeed preceded me, and signed an autograph I was shown. Upon finishing my meal, we took a taxi back to my hotel, drunk on vodka, wine and snake blood. It was about 8:30 PM. This experience cost me 1.1 million Vietnamese dong - about $66 (negotiated down from $80). It was the best $66 I have ever spent.

E