It’s not a restaurant; it’s an actual crocodile farm. You go there pretty much to buy a bucket of meat and throw it into the water to watch the feeding frenzy. It was a challenging taxi ride to arrange because it’s pretty far off the beaten path. I don’t have an address for you this time. It was on a muddy, nearly impassable dirt road, far from the main circuits of the city. When we finally arrived though, the huge, creaky, mossy gate doors swung open, and we got out of the car.

There were essentially 2 tanks. The first one was for alligators. It was small, and the alligators were pretty inactive.

The other one held a pretty huge expanse of muddy, brown water. Inside there was a freaking colony of dinosaurs. The boardwalk that allowed us access to the farm seemed to also be rotting, because many of the planks flexed and bent beneath my weight when I stepped on them. It was a lot like the U Bein Bridge in Mandalay, but falling through this, bridge would have potentially fatal consequences. There were a group of young Burmese boys that were laughing and playing near the edge. I walked past thinking to myself how crazy a childhood I would have had if my ‘neighborhood spot’ had been a goddamn crocodile farm. I’d have been lucky to graduate 5th grade.

The way it works is that you pay 1,000 MMK (0.78 USD) for a small bucket of meat and a pair of tongs. Then you throw the meat into the water and watch the feeding frenzy beneath you. Check this out:

We bought at least 4 buckets each before we had had our fill. I aimed most of my slabs of meat for their bodies instead of their mouths, because that would create the most thrashing. I offered a piece of meat to the group of Burmese kids to throw in, but they were scared. Maybe one of their friends had recently been eaten or something. It wouldn’t surprise me given the state of things in that place. There wasn’t much in the way of safety.