The final concoction: Blood (red) and Bile (green) mixed with 120 proof liquor.

During my trip to Hanoi, I got along so well with my guide Lan and my driver Thang that they invited me to Thang’s anniversary – and I (obviously) said HELL YES! I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Okay, these are the guys who took me to a brothel and introduced me to the hangover cure, so maybe I had a small clue, but damn, was I not ready for this mixology lesson.

The party was at a multi-floor restaurant 20 minutes away from my Hotel. It was the same crowd as the day before – except this time everyone brought their wives and children. The main entertainment was the torture of the turtles.  Two restaurant employees brought out a bucket of the doomed reptiles. While one held the wriggling body, the other employee took out a sharp menacing knife, grabbed the turtles’ heads and slit their necks – collecting the blood in a large glass while the dying turtle gave me the hairy eye ball [ed note: can’t say I blame him, but what was I gonna do?]. Minutes later a waitress took a hypodermic needle and extracted all the green bile-y goodness from the dying reptiles’ gall bladders. It was like watching the Coconut Tree Prison display come to life, with reptile stand ins for the mannequins.

The Deed was done.

Fun fact: turtle blood mixed with rice wine looks and tastes (ironically) like a Bloody Mary while turtle gall bladder juice mixed with rice wine is a sickly, neon green and just tastes like motor oil. Like the snake whiskey in Cu Chi, both are meant to make you virile. I learned this when, after looking around the table and realizing none of the women were served any of the shots except for me, I asked, “Um, so… how come the women aren’t drinking?” To which all the men laughed and Thang said, “Because this is to make you strong in bed!” Apparently, I was now (after showing my boozy prowess the night before) considered a dude. Which is fine with me.

As to whether or not the stuff works: Not having a penis, I could not confirm this, but considering the  amount of booze these guys put down, did wonder if they’d ever heard of whiskey dick – which would seem to make the whole turtle martyring moot. On the bright side, nothing was wasted – for dinner we had fried turtle which reminded me of frog legs: a lot of work for so little meat.

From the party:

For Those About To Die, We Salute You…

Lan (on right, obvi) celebrating Thang’s anniversary.

And then they were eaten.