Elephants in Vietnam excursions. Where to ride elephants in Vietnam? The specifics of Vietnamese cuisine

You can book an excursion to the island at any travel agency in Nha Trang, fortunately, there are a lot of them here. Its cost is about 18 - 25 dollars: this is a trip to two islands at once (monkeys and orchids).

A ticket for a boat carrying tourists to Orchid Island - 150,000 VND for adults and 75,000 for children. Boats depart only in the morning: approximately at 8:30 and at 9:30. Boats follow every half an hour.

Photos with animals - 20,000 VND. Elephant ride - VND 300,000. Add the cost of food, drinks, pet food, souvenirs.

How long will it take to get acquainted with the beauties of the island

For a leisurely review of all the sights of the Orchid Island, swimming and sunbathing on local beach, as well as following to and from the island will take at least half a day. If you take children on a trip, then the voyage will drag on for the whole day.

Acquaintance with Orchid Island

Even on the way by water to the sights, you will see floating crab farms where lobsters and shrimp are grown, and crabs are also harvested. Arriving on the island, you find yourself in a colorful world of flowers of various colors and shapes. And these flowers are orchids.

Orchid Island is a nature reserve. Ostriches, elephants, monkeys, deer, parrots, Himalayan bears and other representatives of the fauna live in it in their natural environment. Animals living on the island are not timid and people are absolutely not shy. They approach tourists and tearfully “beg” for food.

For excursion groups, local trainers demonstrate circus performances with the participation of bears and elephants. There are also rides on ostriches. The local "star" - the elephant Lena, is not averse (although no one really asks her) to give you a ride on her trunk. You can take pictures with the animals.

For little tourists there is a playground: colorful rides are made from ordinary tires. This is creative and budget friendly. Among the entertainment - a game of paintball. Snorkeling lovers near the coral reefs, which are not far from the beach, have the opportunity to explore underwater world islands.

The Vietnamese also added their own design to this corner of Vietnam: stone stairs on the slopes, bridges over streams, beautiful fountains, wooden and stone sculptures. Flowerbeds with green sculptures of animals, cartoon characters look original.

And, of course, orchids - colored "pearls" of the island. Varieties are planted in such a way that their flowering can be observed all year round. Tourists can observe blooming orchids at different times of the year.

You can see beautiful little fluttering creatures of nature in the Butterfly Park, which is open here.

Outside the resort of Nha Trang, an amazing and original Vietnam is hidden. Admiring the beauty of the rice field, many do not even realize how hard manual labor is behind it. Vietnam is in many ways like this: insanely beautiful and attractive; and only peering into this beauty, you begin to realize and appreciate it even more.

Dak Lak Province in Vietnam

Dak Lak Province is located in South Vietnam and is located on the Tain Guen Plateau. Coffee, tea and fruits are grown here. chief administrative city is Buon Ma Thuot. The province of Dak Lak is famous for its picturesque landscapes, either endless rice fields, or rubber forests that do not know the horizon, or flowering coffee plantations, or even real green jungles. The province is home to both the Viet and other minorities such as the Tho, Ede and Mnong. In your household locals they use not so many technological advances (but everyone has a telly, a plate and karaoke!). And here another attractive side of Daklak opens up, especially for tourists. Dak Lak Province is a small elephant country in Vietnam. A tamed elephant is an excellent household helper: it will help to plow the field, and endure the burden, and ride tourists, though it eats a lot, often the elephants are malnourished.

We go on an excursion to the province of Dak Lak

To get to know this amazing area, we took a tour. There are a lot of tour companies in Nha Trang, having studied the length and breadth of all the offers and reviews, they chose the best for us. We had two busy days of sightseeing in the province of Dak Lak and an overnight stay in a small hotel in a village on the shores of Lake Lak. In this article we will talk about the first day:

1. Acquaintance with the Mnong tribe.
2. Elephant ride in the village and Lake Lac.
3. walk along real village Mnong, where the tourist is as much a curiosity for the locals as they are for us.
4. Evening show of the Mnong tribe with songs and dances and tasting of local rice wine and Amakong rum.

On the way to Daklak

We left Nha Trang at 8 am in a small group of 14 people. We already knew some of the passengers from our last trip to the Yang Bay waterfalls. The road was to be 5 hours long, but it passed quite quickly and imperceptibly. There are two factors at play here: the first is scenic views outside the window, and the second is our guide, a storehouse of useful and interesting information. For those who want to independently get from Nha Trang by bike to Dak Lak province, calculate your time and energy correctly. On the way, we managed to admire the main administrative city of Buon Ma Thuot. Our trip fell on the days of the celebration of Tet (Vietnamese New Year). On the one hand, it worked for us. The city was decorated with bright colors: red lanterns, colorful flower beds, yellow chrysanthemums on every corner and cheerful symbols of a fiery monkey. On the other hand, there are a lot of people, especially tourists from China. Somewhere it was very disturbing.

Acquaintance with the Mnong tribe

The Mnongi are a mountain people, the name is translated as "Elephant Catcher", which is not surprising. They are still engaged in the domestication of wild elephants and use these animals for economic purposes. Outwardly, they differ from the Viet (ordinary Vietnamese), they have darker skin, they are larger, the shape of the lips and eyes is different. In general, this tribe has changed little of its way of life over the past hundreds of years, they live almost the same way as the grandfathers of their great-great-grandfathers lived. Yes, a few years ago, motoblocks appeared on the farm, which made work a little easier, but the main role was given to man and elephant.

Mnong live in long houses on stilts (they protect houses from drowning and "uninvited guests" among living creatures). When the weather is dry, the house is used as a shelter from the sun, where domestic animals graze, and the owners themselves can relax in the shade. By the length of the house, you can tell how many families live in it. Houses are completed in length, and usually several families and their generations live under one roof. The Mnong family is matriarchy. Usually 2 staircases lead to the house, one for men, the second for women and guests, including male guests. The female ladder is decorated with protrusions symbolizing the chest, and the male staircase is decorated with a turtle.






Ordinary residents have wooden houses. And those who are richer have a more solid house, a concrete foundation, for example, a strong roof, although the interior decoration is almost the same. They live very poorly, the sleeping place is fenced off with a curtain, and the bed is an ordinary mat. They take a shower by pouring water from a well. Small children are worn in self-woven slings: both hands are free and the child is supervised. Mnong adherents of animism (worship of spirits)

Buy an elephant! Oh please!

Let's return to the elephants, the main helpers of the Mnong. AT this moment about two dozen of these animals are tamed in the village. The thing is that elephants almost do not breed in captivity, so they are caught as adults in the forests, giving them the opportunity to "walk". Domestication takes an average of 4 months to six months, using the standard method of "carrot and stick".

Elephants live on average 80-100 years, in captivity, of course, a little less. Given this longevity of the animal, two mahouts are attached to each elephant if one of the mahouts dies, so that the second may replace him. Elephants after death are buried with all honors, they are treated very respectfully, they are not butchered for sale, but they are buried.

Elephants of Dak Lak province attract foreign tourists and the inhabitants of Vietnam itself, giving the Mnong an opportunity to earn some cash. After all, here you can not only ride around the village on an elephant, but also swim across Lake Lac. This attraction is especially exciting during the period of high water of the lake, approximately from October to January. On average, the depth of the lake is up to 3.5 meters deep.

Lake Lak can be crossed not only on elephants, but also on boats, as the Mnong do daily. The boats are not simple, they are carved from a single tree trunk, long and narrow. The movement is carried out with the help of a stick, which is simply repelled from the bottom. All the boats we were taken on were carved more than a hundred years ago, but they still serve faithfully.

Visiting the Mnongs, evening gong show

When it got dark and the Mnong finished their hard working day, they changed into holiday clothes and waited for us to get to know their culture and customs closer. Dancing, singing, playing homemade musical instruments and drinking rice wine. The wine is made from rice husks, it is poured with water and insisted for several weeks. Before use, it is again diluted with water and served in a large jug and straws. We did not like the taste, the mash is both sour and bitter at the same time. Although they still took part in the competition. The point is who outdrinks whom, our guys against the local girls, and our girls against the local men. There is an impression that the locals not only give in, but also hack.

At the end of the show, we all danced together, tried to play the local instruments ourselves. It was very interesting to get acquainted with the traditions of the Mnong, people are very open and friendly for the most part. Although sometimes a shadow of fatigue slipped on their faces. Returning to our small hotel on the shores of Lake Lak, we were treated to local Amakong rum. It is brewed in huge clay jugs, and it tastes like herbal moonshine.

The day was incredibly interesting and eventful, we received a lot of impressions and a great desire to return for a deeper tour of the province of Dak Lak. Ahead of us was the second day with a tasting of real elephant coffee, a visit to the villa of the last emperor of Vietnam, Bao Dai, and a trip to the Dry Nur waterfall.

For most people, Thailand, India and Sri Lanka are associated with elephants. But in Vietnam you can also see elephants and ride them. There is even a village here that is famous for elephant rides. So, in this article we will tell you about where to ride elephants in Vietnam.

Where to ride elephants in Vietnam?

There are not so many elephants left in Vietnam. If earlier wild elephants lived in a fairly large area, now they live only in a few remote provinces. Scientists predict that by 2021 they may completely disappear.

Now domesticated animals can be found in several Vietnamese provinces. You can ride elephants in Vietnam, for example, by going on an excursion to Dalat. Here in the park, drovers work and everyone can ride huge animals, sitting on a wooden structure tied to the backs of elephants.

An elephant, or rather an elephant can be seen in the popular city of Nha Trang. True, for this you will need to go to one of the islands adjacent to the mainland. Elephant Lena is downright a local celebrity. Adult children are also delighted with it. Elephant rides people on her trunk!

And finally, the most popular place where you can ride elephants in Vietnam is Dak Lak province. There is a village in which about twenty tamed elephants live. This is where all tourists want to go. It is interesting that during the high water period of Lake Lak, here you can not only ride elephants on land, but also swim on animals on the water. Elephants majestically and leisurely walk through the village, then swim across the lake and return back. In addition, tourists are attracted by local residents of the province of Dak Lak - mnongi. They build boats from solid tree trunks and elongated houses, drink rice wine with special straws, play gongs, and Mnong women carry their children in homemade slings.

As you can see, when deciding where to ride elephants in Vietnam, the most attractive place is the province of Dak Lak, but there is one drawback here - the remoteness of the province from the main resort areas. Therefore, if you do not want to travel so far, go to Dalat or to the islands near Nha Trang.

Elephants in Vietnam: Symbolism and Use in Art and Craft

Elephants have always been considered a symbol of wisdom, dignity and prudence. People admired their invincible power and created skillfully made figurines in the form of elephants and used figurines of these animals in making jewelry. Some Buddhist and Hindu temples have sculptures of elephants. And now in Vietnam you can buy figurines of elephants as a keepsake. It is believed that an elephant whose trunk is plump up brings good luck to the owners of the house. The main thing is to put it "face" to the window, so that it will pull it from the street. But elephants with a lowered trunk are bought by women who dream of having offspring. The Vietnamese believe that such an elephant figurine will definitely help to have children. In the shops you can also find beautiful bracelets and rings made of various materials, which are decorated with elephant figurines. But we do not recommend buying products made from elephant tusks. After all, poachers hunt for rare and expensive material, destroying the already small population of elephants.

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Is Vietnamese cuisine so diverse and what absolutely can not be eaten?

Going to Vietnam, you must have read a lot useful information and, of course, paid great attention to Vietnamese cuisine, which, according to many, is quite exotic. Is it really? Here I will talk about how Vietnamese families really eat, which food in vietnam popular

and whether the cuisine of Vietnam is really as diverse as it seems to future travelers.

Let's start with the fact that the Vietnamese cannot imagine their food without rice! Food in Vietnam is primarily rice, and only then everything else. No Vietnamese breakfast, lunch or dinner is unthinkable without rice. Rice is always on the table! In cafes, an additional portion of rice is often brought free of charge, because they have rice, like we have bread. Not a single dish, with the exception of soups, is the cuisine of Vietnam without rice.

Rice in Vietnam is cooked exclusively in rice cookers, which the Vietnamese acquire, as a rule, for a long time. One rice cooker can serve a family for several years, while being operated three times a day.

There are many varieties of rice in Vietnam, but each family chooses which type of rice they like best, and this rice is bought in huge, twenty-kilogram bags. An ordinary Vietnamese family, consisting of four to five people, eat twenty kilograms of rice in about a month and a half.

One of the most delicious varieties of rice, in our opinion, is sticky rice. It is really sticky, but not spreading like porridge, and the hard grains of rice seem to be glued together with glue. Unfortunately, this sort of rice is not sold in Russia. They say you can buy it in Moscow, but we haven't found it yet.

The Vietnamese friends we visited told us the secret that they buy Thai rice because it tastes better! Having traveled all over Vietnam, we have no doubts about this, since the Vietnamese cannot do something just fine. Even the Vietnamese themselves admitted that Thai rice is tastier. Yes, more expensive, but still prefer it.

For rice, Vietnamese cuisine offers meat, a variety of herbs, fish, broths, sauces, omelettes, mushrooms, and so on. Meat - chicken, pork, beef, snake, dog, cat, rat, pigeons, sparrows, ducks, geese, partridges (anything that moves!). Yes, everyone eats it in Vietnam! However, often (even almost always), Vietnamese families still serve rice with pork or beef, stewed and fresh herbs and vegetables, as well as broth. Just like that, without a special reason, they will not cook a snake or a rat at home. The Vietnamese families that we visited also did not eat dogs and cats.

Vietnamese table looks like this:

Plates with meat, fish and vegetables are placed in the center, as well as a large bowl with broth, rice is placed in each bowl. You can pour broth into rice, put pieces of meat and vegetables on top, or you can immediately send them to your mouth, picking them up with chopsticks from a common plate. Bowls small size, because in Vietnam it is considered indecent to impose a lot on yourself, as if you are greedy. So our Vietnamese friend explained to us. You can ask for rice supplements as much as you like, but the meat runs out very quickly, as it is served a little (apparently because the Vietnamese eat little).

This is what a typical Vietnamese table looks like. These dishes are for the whole family, which consists of six people! For two weeks after arriving in Vietnam, I cried every day that I wanted to eat, because I could not understand how the Vietnamese could eat so little.

Vietnamese cuisine on city streets.

Now about what kind of Vietnamese cuisine you will meet during independent travel what to eat and what to avoid.

First I want to note that the food in Vietnam is always fresh! Not a single cafe will leave food prepared in the morning to sell it at lunchtime or in the evening. Because of the heat, food spoils quickly, and people avoid cafes that serve stale food.

Cafes are divided into morning and evening. The first ones work from 5-6 am to lunch, the second from 13-14 pm to 20-21 pm. There are also those who work until 22-23 hours and even until one in the morning (this is mainly in major cities). Food is cooked right there, nothing that can go bad is not stored! In our entire two-month stay in Vietnam, we never got poisoned by food in a cafe! If possible, add pepper to the food, which is on the tables, it disinfects.

Traveling alone, by bus, plane or motorcycle, and not having a big budget to go to a restaurant every day, you will eat in small private cafes, which are everywhere in Vietnam. The food in these cafes is no different. There are, of course, the originals, whose soup is not the same as everyone else's, snails with rice and vegetables that are unusual in taste, but there are few such cafes.

Mostly you will see signs saying COM (rice) or PHO (soup). It happens that in one cafe they serve both soup and rice, then you can eat to satiety! And the first, and the second, and even give tea!

COM (Rice)

Rice is served, as a rule, with a piece of meat (mainly pork or chicken), in some places a fried egg is also placed on top (or boiled brown, prepared according to a special Vietnamese technology), and a small bowl with broth is always served with rice. We often watered the rice with this broth so that it was not so dry. But the broth is not given everywhere! The meat in such cafes is often fatty, so if your body cannot tolerate fatty, fried foods, it is better to see how it is prepared before ordering food. This will not be difficult, since the kitchens are located right in the room where visitors eat.

Also, in some cafes, you can be offered a choice of various vegetables for rice, and all sorts of intricate Vietnamese twists. Feel free to experiment!

Very tasty fried rice, in Vietnamese it is called Comrank, but it is rare to find it. Ask, you might be lucky.

Almost everywhere, additional portions of rice are served for free (or they are asked to pay about 5,000 dong).

PHO (Soup)

Soup. Soups are another story! I loved them very much in Vietnam, another thing is that they are not at all satisfying and after such a soup in half an hour you want to eat again, since they are based on rice noodles, which are quickly absorbed by the body.

Soups are mostly chicken broth with long rice noodles. Thinly sliced ​​pieces of chicken, beef or pork are placed in the soup. You will definitely be asked what you want! Don't get lost, wherever soup is served, it says Bo - beef, Ga - chicken, or Lon - pork. Just point your finger, and after 5 minutes they bring the desired dish to you.

Greens or bean sprouts are served everywhere with soup. Please note that some Vietnamese mix greens directly into the soup and eat such a kind of vinaigrette. I liked to chew the greens more separately from the soup, it seemed to me that the greens in the soup interrupted the taste of the main dish.

Soups are eaten as follows: in your right hand you take chopsticks, in your left - a spoon. You fish out the noodles with chopsticks, put them on a spoon and send them to your mouth. With the spoon in your left hand you sip the broth, and with the chopsticks in your right hand you catch pieces of meat in the soup. It’s not very convenient, I know, but after a few workouts, you will even like this soup-eating technique! No other way. The noodles are long, and it is impossible to eat them using only a spoon, they will slide off.

Food prices in Vietnam.

PHO (soup) in street cafes cannot cost more than VND 50,000. This is already considered very expensive. As a rule, the price for a bowl of soup is 20,000 - 30,000 VND. But not more. It costs more only on highways where truckers stop, or in the center big city. Although in Hanoi and Saigon Pho, we always ate no more than 25,000 dong.

COM (rice) will cost about the same. By the way, do not be surprised, but soups are often more expensive. Why, we never understood. The price for a plate of rice with meat and an egg will be approximately 25,000 - 35,000 VND.

More expensive food in street cafes simply cannot cost! Sometimes when entering a cafe you need to look around, the prices may already be written on the walls, or in the menu on the tables.

As for the prices for fruits and vegetables, they are also low. Dear oranges and apples. But if you go to the Vietnamese market, you can buy exotic fruits at prices ranging from 10,000 to 30,000 VND. There are fruits, for example, lychees, for which they ask for 70,000. Do not be surprised, the Vietnamese pay the same amount. Basically, fruits are no more expensive than food in a cafe (price per 1 kg).

In some major cities there is a huge BIG C supermarket where you can buy food at fixed prices without haggling with anyone.

http://www.bigc.vn On this site you can see which cities in Vietnam have BIG C and what assortment is presented there. In BIG C you can buy ready-made food. We loved going to this store in Hanoi, getting ready meals, a bottle of whiskey, and having a picnic near the Lake of the Returned Sword in the center of Hanoi.

Alcohol in Vietnam.

Alcohol in Vietnam is the same as ours. You can run into a fake by buying a drink even in a normal store.

Beer tastes the same as ours. Normal beer Tiger and Heineken. Good Saigon beer.

Vietnamese whiskey Wall Street deserves special attention. Very good alcohol! And in terms of taste, and the head does not hurt in the morning. A half liter bottle costs about VND 100,000, which is relatively inexpensive. However, once, having bought it in a large store, in the morning we both woke up with a terrible headache. This is what I wrote about above. You can run into everywhere. Better buy Wall Street at BIG C.

Do not take any obscure bottles in street shops!
There is 30-degree local alcohol, which is drunk by Vietnamese alcoholics and our tourists. In our opinion, it is called Zoom-Zum (I don’t know why it was called that). Below is a photo of half of the label. My husband with crests drank it in Da Nang, he says it’s quite normal, but the Vietnamese twitch at the mere sight. It costs 30,000 VND for a 0.5 liter bottle. (Judge for yourself what kind of alcohol can cost $ 1.5?).

Traditional drinks of Vietnam.

Cha da. A delicious Vietnamese iced tea called Cha da, pronounced like this: "Chaada", is served in almost every cafe for free. Somewhere they will take a couple of thousand dongs for it, somewhere five thousand, but chaada is everywhere. Somewhere you have to ask to be brought, somewhere it is already on the tables in jugs. This Vietnamese green tea is very refreshing and thirst quenching. The taste is very light, with a slight hint of green tea.

It will be very tasty if you squeeze a lime into the chaada. By the way, lime is very popular in Vietnam and is on the tables in almost all cafes! If there is no lime somewhere, then this is rather an exception, and a sad one at that. The Vietnamese add lime to soup, pour it over rice, and also squeeze it into chaada.

cane juice. Very tasty sweet drink! We always stopped for a drink whenever possible. The cost of one glass of cane juice is from 5,000 to 15,000 VND, depending on the location. On the track, cane juice will cost no more than 10,000 VND.

Once we met a man in Hanoi who paid 40,000 VND for a glass of cane juice! This is unthinkable! He was deceived by calling the price three times higher than it really is. In the same place, we drank this juice for 12,000 VND. Be careful.

Ice. About ice in South-East Asia there are legends. And that they keep it in the ground, and cut it on asphalt, etc. Do you think this is really possible in the 21st century?!

The answer is YES! This is how it is still! We ourselves were surprised, because we thought that these were just fairy tales, however, when we saw HOW ice is added to drinks, our fantasies about the civilization of the Vietnamese were dispelled.

Try not to take drinks with ice! Ice for cafes is bought in briquettes and sawn on the ground (in Cambodia as well).

Once we wanted to drink tea with ice, but when we saw how they want to prepare this tea for us, we quickly reeled in our fishing rods.

Here is how it was. We drive up to the cafe and ask them to make us iced tea. The grandmother, who works in a cafe, went up to some bathtub standing on the street, covered with a concrete slab on top (maybe not concrete, but very similar), pushed this slab away. There was ice! It was covered with sand and some grains. She began to shake it all off with her palm, then she took a briquette, dipped it in a bucket of water (like washed off the sand), put it on the table, picked up a file and wanted to cut this piece of ice. Then we realized what was the matter, and retreated.

They do the same with iced coffee. Some prick ice in special bags, but often a piece of ice is simply taken in hand and pricked with the blunt side of the knife. Then they collect the resulting ice fragments from the table with their hands and put them in your cup.

I hope you don't think that someone is wearing gloves?

Where can you eat?

You can eat in Vietnam not in all places. So, a few rules that will help you avoid trouble in catering places:

1. Always, before you sit down at the table, ask how much the food costs! If they refuse to tell you the price, or they say something indistinct, or they say, they say, sit down, then we'll figure it out, in no case do not eat in such a cafe! Leave immediately, and do not react to further persuasion! You can get in a lot of trouble!!!

If you ask how much it costs, in Vietnamese it will be “Bao nyu tyn?”. This phrase is understood everywhere, so if they refuse to answer you or pretend that they do not understand, turn around and leave such an institution. Because in the end they can present a bill ten times more, citing the fact that you did not immediately find out the cost of food, but just today it costs as much as 100 bucks.

1. Stop where people sit. If there are a lot of people in a cafe, it means that the establishment is trusted, popular with the local population, because it is delicious and inexpensive. Pay the same attention to the transport standing near the cafe. If there are mopeds, you can safely go in. This means that the food there is inexpensive and locals prefer this particular cafe. If there are mostly cars, then, as a local resident explained to us, food will be expensive, since this is already something like a restaurant.

1. Pay attention to the general environment. Is it clean, bright and there are napkins and lime saucers on the tables? Locals are sitting, and the owner of the cafe is trying to explain to you how much it costs? Then welcome! But this rule does not always work in street cafes in metropolitan areas. It is more suitable for cafes located in small towns or on highways. AT big cities, such as Saigon or Hanoi, street cafes may not seem very pleasant, but they will be very tasty and at a reasonable price.

1. If there is no one in the cafe, you are called some exorbitant price and at the same time you also have the opportunity to see how the food is prepared, it is better to refrain from such a meal. Most likely, it will be tasteless, expensive, and the food may not be entirely fresh (although there is no such thing as “stale food” in Vietnam in principle).

As people who have traveled all over Vietnam on a motorcycle and seen many "Vietnamese miracles", we will give you our good advice - never, ever eat a dog or a cat!

First, from a purely ethical point of view, in our opinion, it is disgusting to even imagine.

Secondly, look at what kind of dogs they eat!

(poor dogs, sorry).

These dogs were captured on the streets of Vietnamese cities and villages, and now they are being taken to the slaughterhouse. They may have various diseases, including blood diseases that are not killed by heat treatment. Do you need it?

I doubt it's the same with cats. We have not seen homeless cats and dogs in the northern part of Vietnam. Why do you think?

In the south of Vietnam - from Phu Quoc, Saigon to Da Nang, dogs and cats are not usually eaten, but in the north of Vietnam, from Da Nang to Sapa, dogs, cats, and rats are also eaten. In the south it is considered bad manners to eat a dog. In the north you can eat everything!

Of course, you will not find such food in ordinary street cafes, but only in restaurants.

When you travel all over Vietnam, you will, of course, have your favorite dishes. You may even think that complete nonsense is written here and share your discoveries in the field of Vietnamese cuisine. If so, then I will only be glad to additions and amendments!

Last thing. Always carry hand sanitizer with you and wipe your sticks with it! Sometimes chopsticks fall on the floor, cafe workers pick them up and put them back in the common basket on the table .... It happens. I saw it myself.

Oh that Vietnamese food! Bon appetit, so to speak!

see also

From here, the border with Cambodia is only a few hours on foot. The road trodden by elephants makes a sharp turn - so as not to leave Vietnamese territory. Luxurious thickets of bamboo, a plant typical of these places, amaze with their diversity. Here and yellow of all shades, and the delicate green of newly sprouting sprouts, and the brown warmth of thick trunks - some of them reach the height of a four-story building. It is difficult to move along the path - everything around is overgrown with dense shrubs; its hard, iron claw-like spines scratch mercilessly - our hands ached for a long time from these wounds.

We cross one more of the streams - during this period they are quite small - and we see a small cemetery. Silent guardians are placed along its edges - wooden sculptures in the form of stylized figures of animals, in particular, an elephant. The sparkling white skull of a buffalo, which is designed to ward off evil spirits, as well as other symbols, indicates that the place is holy. And several large amphoras dug into the ground, containing offerings for the gods, indicate that people live somewhere nearby - in some vessels we see fresh fruit. And so it is: another ten minutes of travel, and our entire caravan, elephants and people, enters a small village built on stilts - much to the surprise of its inhabitants.

Giaray is one of 54 minorities living in Vietnam. For many centuries they have preserved their original way of life intact. They do this because they live in hard-to-reach places the Vietnamese jungle, and all the repeated attempts to "Vietnamize" these tribes, which were undertaken by the authorities, ended in failure. Zarai men are short in stature, their skin color is reminiscent of ambergris. All clothing consists of a loincloth. Women go bare-chested. As soon as our expedition entered the territory of the village, the locals surrounded the unusual guests with curiosity - only the children kept aloof, afraid to approach people of an unprecedented race. This is understandable: the route of our expedition on elephants runs through a zone prohibited for foreigners. Giaray do not speak Vietnamese, and therefore we need a translator - from local to Vietnamese. We brought it from Pleiku. He quickly talks about something with an elderly man, it seems, the head of the village.

Then another translator - from Vietnamese into Russian - Vao - tells us: we are welcome in the village. And confirms what we have already read in the eyes of the inhabitants around us: we are the first white people to set foot on the territory where they live.

Little by little we learn that this small nation, which settled here two thousand years ago, has always refused to participate in military conflicts. Yes, they supplied the Viet Cong with food, but only because they forced them to. In general, they have good contacts with other tribes that inhabit the plain outside the jungle. Zyaray offer them tobacco, medicinal plants, copper, and other forest products, while they themselves receive metal products and agricultural implements in exchange.

The head of the village invites us to his modest bamboo hut. Inside it is dark, smells of smoke, but the eyes soon get used to it. In the corner there is a hearth built of stones and everything necessary for cooking, a fairly large set of knives of various sizes, tools for hunting and next to the hearth - mats for rest. Inside the hut - a pleasant coolness. We came here in winter, but if at night the temperature is quite low, then during the day it is replaced by unbearable heat.

The owner of the house moves towards us a vessel filled with "jiu ge" - an alcoholic drink made from fermented rice. We drink in turn, using a single rice straw. According to tradition, this drink is served during annual festivities and other celebrations, or when a completely unfamiliar guest appears. Meanwhile, one of the women prepares rice, which is then served with chicken chunks and nyuok mam sauce, made from fish and vegetables. The interpreter gives us the words of the owner, who is very upset that he cannot treat us with snake meat, frog legs and monkey brains - the favorite delicacies of Zarai.

Alberto, the youngest member of our expedition, doesn't actually drink, but he sips jiu ge from time to time. And rightly so: this drink is much less hazardous to health than, for example, river water. Similarly, Igor, who at first did not have a very favorable attitude towards this product of rice distillation, now drinks it with pleasure.

The vessel with the straw has already made several circles, and the mistress of the house is becoming very cheerful. At some point, in a fit of loud laughter, she shows everyone her front teeth, which have been ground almost to the ground, the stumps of which are painted black. The sight is truly terrible. It is impossible to guess how old this woman is. And when she talks about her age, that she got married when there, in the valley, bombs were still falling from the sky, it's hard to believe.

I smile to hide my feelings and try to take a few pictures... I learn that the tradition of piercing the earlobes and inserting bamboo sticks into the holes, as well as grinding and grinding teeth black, are all part of the ritual that signifies the entry into adulthood.

Our Xuan, a girl of rare grace and beauty, who is a third-year student at the University of Hanoi, shakes her head and for the second time expresses surprise in her broken Russian - until now she simply could not imagine that such a life exists in her country. From time to time, she curiously asks the owner about something, but each time, instead of an answer, she receives only a smile and a shake of her head - he clearly does not understand what they are talking about.

I never could have imagined that in Vietnam, on the threshold of the year 2000, I would meet with representatives of primitive tribes, whose life is marked by the most extreme simplicity. The local hunters use the same crossbows and poisoned arrows, and the fishermen use the same nets and traps that their ancestors used. The forest satisfies all their needs, with rare exceptions. They get everything here - from material for building houses to game and fruit. For example, something like mats are made from the bark of some plants, which are placed under baskets mounted on the backs of elephants. The same bark gives threads from which coarse fabrics are woven.

The next day gave us a unique spectacle: we were witnesses of a cruel ritual. Among many tribes of this region, buffalo breeding is common - but not so much for work and not for the sake of meat, but for sacrifices. The buffalo is considered the most expensive gift.

With the first rays dawn there is a feeling of something solemn in the air. Sunny day, blue sky. The ceremony starts around noon. In the middle of the village, several thick bamboo trunks are dug into the ground, tightly connected to each other. Each stem is richly decorated on top. A buffalo is tied to the trunks - a powerful animal with huge horns, weighing at least three tons. Calling cries, drumming, beats of the sacred gong, the roar of an animal - all this mixed up into one wild, unimaginable whirlwind of sounds. Crazed with fear, the buffalo thrashes furiously, trying to free itself. Music and screams gradually subside, the buffalo stands rooted to the spot, nostrils flaring - he feels the approaching death. Two men, holding sharply sharpened knives with exorbitantly long handles, sneak up on the animal and, with two precisely calculated movements, instantly cut the tendons of its front legs. Having let out a terrible cry, the buffalo falls to its knees, and then a hail of arrows falls on it - the arrows carefully aim so as not to hit vital places. General exaltation, screams - and the unfortunate victim dies in terrible agony. For the villagers this is a great day, but for us it is just a terrible, shuddering spectacle. The Zyaray believe that the more the sacrificed buffalo suffers, the better: the farther the evil spirits, the cause of all misfortunes, will go from the village. The holiday ends with a plentiful treat - and all this happens a stone's throw from the blood-drenched site.

Zarai's life is divided, as it were, into two stages. Ten months they work on rice fields, cultivate sweet potatoes, maize, other crops, cassava, tobacco, and spend two months building and repairing their huts, making earthenware, weaving baskets, and after knocking down a large tree, hollow out canoes. They also celebrate weddings. From time to time, men go hunting and, as a rule, bring deer or antelope.

I ask if there are tigers here - I heard about them when I traveled through Cambodia many months ago and wandered into places located not far from here. I am told that a few years ago in a village a day's journey away from here, a tiger killed a girl. She was collecting firewood and went very close to the house. "But we decided we weren't going to hunt him," a man tells me, whose back is heavily tattooed, mostly geometric designs.

Tomorrow we leave this extraordinary oasis, which opened up a completely different world before us. Our obedient elephants are moving forward, and it seems that they are moving very slowly, but when Igor jumps to the ground to take a few pictures, he then has to run to catch up with us. The huge baskets in which we sit are not very comfortable for long journeys, and I regret camel saddles - compared to these baskets, they seem like down pillows.

Evening comes, the full moon appears - here it seems just huge. We rest by the fire, stretched out in hammocks suspended from bamboo trunks. Every day, fatigue accumulates more and more, but we nevertheless continue our journey, which brings us more and more new impressions. We are isolated from the whole world, we are surrounded by dangers, we are forced to overcome a lot of difficulties. Myriads of insects, poisonous snakes, mosquitoes - and malarial ones too, an intolerable climate ... So what!

"All this is nothing compared to the brilliance of magnificent nature, so amazing, so diverse - it is here that a person feels how small and weak he is," I wrote in my diary.

To the chirping of crickets, Kuang, an official from Hanoi who travels with us, tells us that the jungles of Vietnam were the theater of bloody battles. 27 years ago, as a boy, he took part in the attack on the American base at Pleiku, two days' march from where we are. Kuang came along the "Ho Chi Minh trail", which stretched along the border through the territory of Laos and Cambodia. In that battle at Pleiku, 8 American soldiers and at least 200 Vietnamese were killed. On the same day, the Pentagon carried out retaliatory attacks on North Vietnamese targets. This was the beginning of the US involvement in the war, which lasted ten years.

"Of those who fought alongside me in those days," says Kuang, "only one of every five returned home."

Our journey ends in Shuz, a village located on the very edge of civilization, along road number 14, which leads from Pleiku to Dalat, a resort founded by the French. We lived through unforgettable days on a journey similar to the great expeditions of the past. It is with sadness that we part with our elephant friends - indispensable companions on this journey, patient, stubborn and funny giants.

Jacek Palkiewicz, Italian traveler. Translated from Italian by Ludmila Filatova