Healthy men or healthy sleep?

With ongoing construction next door and the often unbearable Hanoian heat, we are frequently motivated by the idea of leaving the city for the weekend. The issue is finding a place that can provide fresh air, that is not too crowded, not too distant and peaceful enough to catch up on some sleepless nights.

One of the many colourful butterflies

One night, over dinner and a nice cold bottle of Bia Hanoi, we agreed to explore Tam Dao National Park, perched up on a mountaintop North-West of Hanoi. We were totally set on making it an adventurous weekend and, to make the most of it, we came to the conclusion that riding our motorbikes would be the perfect option. Like anything in Vietnam, the actual distance is never really exact. For this particular trip, different sources said different things. All we knew was that it it's between 67 and 87 km from Hanoi, translating into approximately a 2-hour drive. One thing was certain: going by two-wheeler is better than by four-wheeler. One of my colleagues went as far as describing the one-lane mountainous road as “frightening” and “treacherous" winding its way up nestled paths built over vertiginous cliffs. The perfect equation for a mix of discovery and adrenaline!

The single meagre planning attempt was when I contacted the cheapest of the three hotels listed in the Lonely Planet. After asking in Vietnamese whether the receptionist spoke English and getting an unhesitant “No” for an answer, I carried on with my limited conversational skills to request two rooms for four people. As we were making progress in mutual understanding, I was shocked to hear the final price. I proceeded to bargain a little with the sole result of getting a loud laugh followed by him hanging up in my face. From that point on it was going to be a completely unplanned weekend. No maps, no hotel and no clear indication of the actual distance to our destination.

After getting off the main road, the trip became increasingly more pleasant. Oppressing smog-ridden clouds were scarcer, rays of sunlight appeared playfully rolling over the ready-to-harvest rice paddies and houses became fewer and far between. Stinky trucks with ancient exhaust pipes made way to fewer motorbikes and more bicycles. The final 20 km were indeed up a winding mountain road, but far from being anything like those in the Swiss Alps. As the motorbike started coughing and straining itself under the weight of two well-fed Westerners, the soothing mountain breeze slowly invaded our nostrils seeping deeply into the remotest alveoli. Both our bodies and minds finally found a place to rest.

Spider hiding behind his x-shaped web

The highlight of the weekend was Saturday night's meal. Tam Dao is mostly a weekend getaway for Vietnamese tourists. This means that dinner is served earlier than by European standards if you want to ensure that there is still something left to order. The local specialties were a novelty to us, including exotic ones like porcupines and larvae. We were a bit unsure about the selection, and ended up picking a place that offered a larger choice of foods, including more conventional ones.

Once our meal was served, the owner of the restaurant wobblingly approached our table with a wide smile impressed on his face, a huge bottle of Vietnamese vodka in his right hand and shot glasses in his left. His eyes were glittering from the liquor ingested prior to our arrival and his speech uneven. He started expressing how honoured he was to have foreign tourists in his restaurant and native town of Tam Dao. He made sure we were enjoying our meal and called for a toast. After a couple more speeches, he vacillated his way back to his table. At which point another man from another table made his way to ours, also tightly holding onto a bottle of vodka. This time the man assured it was good Russian vodka, heavily emphasising the word RUS-SI-AN.

While serving us another round, he inquired whether anybody at our table spoke the language of Pushkin. I confirmed that I did and he excitedly poured another round. When I asked whether he learned Russian while working in the Soviet Union, he quickly corrected me and said he studied "v Institute".  At which point, to our surprise, he started singing a song in a language that sounded like Russian but was far from being intelligible. And, of course the performance required yet another toast.

View of tropical forest

We all started feeling warm and our faces were gently altering to different shades of pink. But we were naïve to think that it was over! Mr. Restaurant-Owner made sure to have his last word after Mr. Russian-Educated-Singer walked off. This time, however, he came over with a different bottle. It was a simple plastic bottle filled with liquid equalling the colour of our cheeks. He started illustrating the virtues of this secret drink, stressing the special health benefits it brought to males. "So why is it pink?" I asked, "Because it's made out of…" at which point he proceeded to mimic the movement of a snake with his left arm."Oh! Snake blood!" Well, not just any snake, but cobra's blood! Although I was a little put off by the idea of ingesting cobra blood, I was the first to volunteer for a shot. While my face seemed unable to rid itself of my initial disturbed grimace, I realized that the flavour wasn't as unpleasant as expected: it had a slight sweetness camouflaging the harshness of the cheap vodka.

Twenty minutes later, Mr. Restaurant-Owner staggered over to our table one last time, slurring his words into a "Goodnight and hope to see you again!" He hobbled down the steps, lit a cigarette and was gently taken under the arm by his wife in a failed attempt to lead him in a linear direction. At which point I began to wonder: were the extraordinary effects of cobra blood simply limited to guaranteeing a deeper and sounder sleep for men?