23rd May – Snake alley

Not a very exciting day really. Had loads of bits and pieces to finish up before leaving the city tomorrow.
I had read in the guide book that unless you visit one of Taipei’s night markets while you are staying you really haven’t experienced Taiwan properly. So we decided to go to Snake alley, otherwise known as the Huaxi Street market. What a sight. As far as the eye could see were stalls selling absolutely everything from pornographic dvds to flip flops as well as many types of food also. Before coming we had planned on grabbing a bite to eat here but on closer inspection none of us fancied any of it, infact as we moved deeper into the market the smells were making us all feel rather sick. The only way to describe it was that whatever many of the stalls were cooking smelt like poo so needless to say nobody felt like eating!
But we still hadn’t seen the snakes so off we went down another alley to see what we could find. There seemed to be lots of puppies for sale, which the girls liked until we saw how drugged they all seemed. Although one guy had two little Huskies in a cage and when the girls went over to ask if they could stroke them he handed them each one to hold which was really kind as he must have known we were not going to buy them. They were very cute!
Down another alley and we finally found the snakes. A huge boa constrictor was curled up at the feet of a man in front of the restaurant. He (the man) had on a little microphone and was calling to people, not sure what for though as it was all in Chinese. Further on were many more restaurants with various types and sizes of snakes in cages in front. By now we had all seen enough and were ready to head back towards the hotel and find something more ordinary to eat.
Unfortunately what we had forgotten is that most places stop serving at 9pm and everything closes at 10pm so we ended up in the food mall at the local supermarket with a subway sandwich which was actually just about what we felt like.