Hiss

According to my guidebook, "there is little of interest in Ben Tre town itself." However, the preceding section is about Dong Tam Snake Farm, located in My Tho, in Tien Giang province. I read this before arriving in Ben Tre, and I have been trying to go there ever since. Today was the long-awaited day. The college made an event out of it, and we went in a big van: the rector, his granddaughter, several administrators, me, Morena, Ms. Trang, and Ms. Nga (Morena's Ms. Trang-equivalent). I have to admit, even though at some point I read the blurb about the snake farm, I didn't really know what to expect. To fill in for this lack of information, my brain concocted an image that I retrospectively realize was rather irrational. I was expecting some sort of Indiana Jones snake pit experience. Why would I expect that? Who knows. Why would that expectation make me want to go here? Because I'm crazy? Needless to say, my expectation was quite off. It was more like a zoo with a significant emphasis on snakes and a hospital for snakebite victims. We did not visit the latter, though apparently they do offer tours.

Green bamboo vipers

More snakes in trees

We walked into a room with rows of cages and a woman casually wearing two pythons that were twining themselves around her. I suspected I would soon be fulfilling one of my other expectations for the day: to be slung with a big ole snake. However, everyone seemed to be avoiding her rather than stepping forward for bedecking. Perhaps I was misconstruing the situation? But no, I was right, and I received my slithery friend. Shortly thereafter, two of the men with us did the same. Given everyone's previous avoidance of the snakes, I can't help but think that my fearlessness prompted them to step up. Most (and by most I mean all) of the other women in our group were afraid of snakes, but I managed to get Morena and Ms. Trang to touch one of the snakes. Luckily for them, they did not fall victims to the snake keeper's eager attempts to thrust the pythons onto reluctant visitor's shoulders.

I thought we would be going home after our visit to the snake farm, but instead we went to a pagoda. And that's about all I know about it.

That's one big happy Buddha

Different Buddha incarnation

Next was lunch at a vegetarian place across the street from the pagoda. I suspect monks and other Buddhist visitors are its primary clientele. It was refreshing to see broccoli and other vegetables that rarely make an appearance on Vietnamese plates, and slightly amusing to see vegetarian pseudo-shrimp and pseudo-squid mixed in.

Looks like they have a squid mold in the kitchen,

Back to yesterday and my princesshood, because there was more of it today. I like to think that I am having an 'authentic experience,' whatever that might be, that my interaction with Vietnam and Vietnamese culture is somehow more legitimate than that of a passing tourist. While I eat at food stands instead of at restaurants and I have some plumbing issues and multi-legged visitors, my life here isn't really that 'authentic' at all. And it's not just my financial privilege, which is certainly a big part of it. I am always a guest of honor. As a foreign visitor, no matter how long term, I am afforded a social status that I otherwise would not be even close to. Despite my occasional woes about my living arrangements, I have air conditioning and I sleep on a bed instead of on the floor, like some of my students do. I expressed a desire to go to the snake farm, and the rector himself organized a trip. It is not even an hour away, yet none of the group members had been there before. Today one of the teachers took me to pick out a nice purse for her to buy me, just because she wanted to. It wouldn't surprise me for one Vietnamese person to do that for another, but it feels like more special treatment that keeps me from knowing what it's 'really like'. But I am a traveler. If this was my daily life, and if everyone treated me like this was my daily life, it wouldn't be nearly as exciting. So I'm not complaining. It's just something I have to remind myself of. I can't let myself think that I know what real life is like here -- not to mention that there is one singular true Vietnamese lifestyle, to begin with; I can only catch glimpses of local life, usually in contrast to my own life.

No back story, just a candid moment caught on camera.