The French are going on strike (again). What will happen to travelers?

We bet it's not as weird as a journal made of cow manure… I'll admit: I was pretty pleased with myself last year when I brought back a bottle of borovnica (blueberry brandy) from my trip to Slovenia. The alcohol is a trademark of the country and sold in souvenir shops and corner stores alike, all over Slovenia. But what made this purchase unique is that the bottle had been artfully crafted to match the geography of the country itself. Genius! What better way to remember a country than to sample some of its signature liqueur—out of a bottle in the shape of said country? Surely, I thought, hardly anyone else in the world had such a unique souvenir! I patted myself on the back and proudly presented it to my parents as a gift last Christmas. But when I came across this online article—about a Vermont novelty shop selling journals made out of cow manure—I knew I had been beat. Cow poop journals, hands down, wins as the most unusual souvenir I've ever heard of. And never fear: They're still for sale! Yes, folks—for the bargain price of just $6—one of these cow bile mementos can be yours! It's almost enough to entice me to make a special trip to Vermont, just to purchase one! Or not… This got me thinking about what other crazy souvenirs folks have brought back from the far reaches of the world. A quick Google search gave me a glimpse into some of the possibilities. One British travel site offered suggestions for how to track down five of the strangest souvenirs from around the world, including wallets made out of the entire bodies of giant frogs, from the Philippines; a bottle of rice wine, with a dead poisonous snake coiled up in the bottom, from Vietnam; and panda poo from Sichuan, China. But if I know our Budget Travel readers as well as I think I do, I suspect you can one-up all these silly purchases, so here's your chance. Tell us about the craziest souvenir you've ever purchased. We'd love to hear about it!

What's the most outrageous beverage you've tried? Last week, I got back from Hong Kong, a paradise for the adventurous eater. I nibbled on braised chicken toes. I sampled deer tendons. I snacked on tomato-flavored candy. I ate dishes spotted with Szechuan chiles and peppercorns so spicy that the restaurant provided a box of tissues on the table to wipe the sweat from your brow. And yet, far and away the most unappealing, bizarre, and downright disgusting thing I sampled in Asia was not a weird meat dish or some scary foreign delicacy. It was a simple drink—the seemingly innocuous-sounding salty lemon soda. When I ordered the drink at a Vietnamese noodle shop in Kowloon, I expected a slightly salty but still sweet beverage, not unlike a Gatorade or the salty caramel milkshake I've grown to love at Midtown favorite, Schnipper's Quality Kitchen. What arrived was a tall icy glass of seltzer with a preserved salted lemon in the bottom and a spoon used to mash it up. Cool, crisp, and clear, it looked like the refreshing Asian cousin of the mojito. Which is what made the first sip all the more horrifying. Salty lemon soda tastes like a glass of ocean water on the rocks or carbonated citrus sweat. The saline taste is overwhelming. Each sip, naturally, makes you even thirstier. You try to take another sip, hoping it will get better. It doesn't. You search for an ice cube that may have remained untainted by the salt. You can't find one. And the waitress stands a few feet away from the table and laughs at the gweilo—or "ghost man," a common Cantonese slang term for white foreigners—who has been so easily defeated by a simple bubbly drink. I'm sure people love the stuff, but it left me with a sour (and salty) taste in my mouth. I know I'm a wuss. In the grand scheme of bizarre beverages, salty lemon soda is nothing. In Kenya and Tanzania, members of the Maasai tribe often mix cow blood with their milk. In Latin America, a maize-based beer known as chicha is made by chewing up and spitting out purple corn kernels, before allowing the saliva mixture to sit and ferment. Perhaps most horrifying of all is Korean and Chinese baby mice wine. Let that sink in for a minute. Baby mice are drowned in rice wine before they even open their eyes and guzzled for their supposed health benefits. (If you're not squeamish, type "baby mice wine" into your Google Image search. If you're a lover of small animals, refrain.) Can you top that? While traveling, have you ever tried a gross, weird, or otherwise interesting drink you can't find back home? On a related note, check out the world's weirdest restaurants!