home Exit permit What do elephants eat in Vietnam. Another Vietnam - excursion to Dak Lak province

What do elephants eat in Vietnam. Another Vietnam - excursion to Dak Lak province

Tourists certainly want to include this entertainment in their travel program in Vietnam.
To get pleasure and not disappointment, it is important to immediately decide what exactly you expect from such a walk.

Maximum comfort, minimum extreme

If you want to take a spectacular selfie without leaving your comfort zone, it is better to go to Dalat. There is a well-functioning attraction in Prenn Park - great option for your first close encounter with elephants. Tamed animals are very peaceful and willingly accept treats.
Experienced mahouts lead the elephants along a specific route that takes place in the picturesque surroundings of the park. Riders can admire the local scenery and get a light dose of adrenaline - on some stages of the route with difficult terrain.

Through the jungle and waters

If your soul asks for real extreme sports, go to Daklak. The jungles and parks of this Vietnamese province are home to herds of wild elephants. They are few in number, and tourists only manage to see them during the rainy season - May - October. During this period, wild animals come to watering places and you can watch them.
Local residents catch and tame four-legged giants. Elephants become domestic helpers and bring good income in the tourism business.
Elephant trekking in Dak Lak Province involves traveling by land and water. The land trail ends on the shores of Lake Lak or the mountain river Serepok.
Followed by " water treatments" Under the control of a mahout, an elephant swims its riders across a body of water. It turns out - skating with swimming. The waters of Vietnamese lakes and rivers are not exceptionally transparent, which adds to the extreme.
You can book a horseback ride into the jungle for the whole day. Local guides will offer routes for thrill-seekers - over rough terrain, with visits to colorful Vietnamese villages and exotic fishing.

To Buon Don - for unique experiences and masculine potion

People come to Dak Lak to watch a unique show - the elephant festival, which is held in the Buon Don elephant village in the third lunar month, every two years. To the delight of the spectators, the animals participate in various competitions - swimming, “running” at speed, playing football, pulling weights, throwing logs. Teams of four-legged participants represent nearby villages.
You can ride an elephant in Vietnam not only in popular tourist areas. In the villages of Kon Tum, Dac Nong, Lai Chau, Dien Bien, and Binh Thuan provinces, visitors will be provided with this service at a reasonable price. Some families maintain mini-elephant farms.
The most famous elephant village is Buon Don. Here you can not only see a unique show, but also get acquainted with the life of the legendary hunter Ama Kong.
The brave and dexterous “king of the elephants” caught and raised 360 wild animals. He went hunting for the last time at the age of 86 and brought 7 captive giants to the village. Around the same age, Ama Kong married for the fifth time to a local young beauty of 25 years old.
The secret of Kong's male strength and longevity (he lived for 102 years) is in a miraculous potion that the hunter himself invented. Residents of Buon Don claim that they know the recipe and offer the magic elixir to tourists.

Outside the resort of Nha Trang lies the amazing and original Vietnam. While admiring the beauty of a rice field, many have no idea of the hard manual labor that goes into it. Vietnam is like that in many ways: incredibly beautiful and attractive; and only after looking at 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 Taing Guen Plateau. Coffee, tea and fruits are grown here. Main administrative city is Buon Ma Thuot. Dak Lak province is famous for its picturesque landscapes, the endless rice fields, then rubber forests that know no horizon, then flowering coffee plantations, or even real green jungles. The province is home to both the Viet and representatives of other minorities such as the Tho, Ede and Mnong. On your farm local residents Not many achievements of technological progress are used (but everyone has a TV, 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 helper around the house: it will help plow the field, and will carry heavy loads, and will give tourists rides, although it eats a lot, elephants are often malnourished.

We go on an excursion to Dak Lak province

To get to know this amazing area, we took a tour. There are many excursion companies in Nha Trang, having studied all the offers and reviews far and wide, we chose the best for us. We had two busy days of excursions around 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 tell you about the first day:

Meet the Mnong tribe.
Elephant rides around the village and Lake Lac.
Walk through real village Mnong, where tourists are as much a curiosity to the locals as they are to us.
Evening Mnong tribe show with songs and dances and tasting of local rice wine and Amakong rum.

On the way to Dak Lak

We left Nha Trang at 8 am in a small group of 14 people. We already knew some of the passengers from our previous trip to Yang Bay Falls. The road was supposed to be 5 hours long, but it passed quite quickly and unnoticed. There are 2 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 get from Nha Trang by bike to Dak Lak province on their own, calculate your energy and time correctly. On the way we managed to admire the main administrative city of Buon Ma Thuot. Our trip fell on the days of Tet (Vietnamese) celebration New Year). On the one hand, this was to our advantage. The city was decorated with bright colors: red lanterns, colorful flower beds, yellow chrysanthemums on every corner and cheerful fire monkey symbols. On the other hand, there are a lot of people, especially tourists from China. In some places it was very disturbing.

Meet the Mnong tribe

The Mnongs are a mountain people; their name translates as “Elephant Catcher,” which is not surprising. They are still domesticating wild elephants and using these animals for economic purposes. Outwardly, they differ from the Vietnamese (ordinary Vietnamese), they have darker skin, they are larger, the shape of their lips and eyes is different. In general, this tribe has changed little in their 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, walk-behind tractors appeared on the farm, making work a little easier, but the main role was given to man and elephant.

Mnongs live in long houses on stilts (they protect houses from flooding and “uninvited guests” among living creatures). When the weather is dry, the house is used as a shelter from the sun, where livestock graze, and the owners themselves can relax in the shade. By the length of the house you can tell approximately how many families live in it. Houses are built lengthwise, and usually several families and their generations live under one roof. Among the Mnongs, matriarchy reigns in the family. There are usually 2 staircases leading to the house, one for men, the second for women and guests, including male guests. The women's staircase is decorated with protrusions symbolizing breasts, and the men's 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, their sleeping place is surrounded by a curtain, and the bed is an ordinary mat. They take a shower by dousing themselves with water from a well. Small children are carried in self-woven slings: both hands are free and the child is under supervision. Mnong adherents of animism (spirit worship)

Buy an elephant! Oh please!

Let's return to the elephants, the main assistants of the mnongs. IN this moment About two dozen of these animals have been tamed in the village. The thing is that elephants almost never reproduce in captivity, so they are caught as adults in the forests, giving them the opportunity to “take a walk.” Domestication takes on average from 4 months to six months, using the standard “carrot and stick” method.

Elephants live on average 80-100 years, in captivity, of course, a little less. Given the animal's lifespan, two mahouts are assigned to each elephant, in case one mahout dies, so that the second can replace him. After death, elephants are buried with all honors, they are treated with great respect, they are not butchered for sale, but rather they are buried.

Elephants of Dak Lak Province attract foreign tourists and the residents of Vietnam itself, giving the many people the opportunity to earn extra cash. After all, here you can not only ride around the village on an elephant, but also swim across Lake Lak. This attraction is especially exciting during the period of high water on 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 by elephants, but also by boats, as the Mnongs do every day. The boats are not simple, they are carved from a single tree trunk, long and narrow. The movement is carried out using a stick, which is simply pushed off the bottom. All the boats we took a ride on were built more than a hundred years ago, but still serve faithfully.

Visiting the Mnongs, evening gong show

When it got dark and the Mongongs finished their hard day of work, they changed into festive clothes and were waiting for us to introduce us to their culture and customs more closely. Dancing, singing, playing homemade musical instruments and drinking rice wine. The wine is made from rice husks, which are filled with water and left to steep for several weeks. Before use, dilute again with water and serve in a large jug and straws. We didn’t like the taste; the mash was both sour and bitter. Although they still took part in the competition. The point is who will outdrink whom, our boys against local girls, and our girls against local men. There is an impression that the locals not only give in, but also do nothing.

At the end of the show, we all danced together and tried to play local instruments ourselves. It was very interesting to get acquainted with the traditions of the Mnong people; the majority of people are very open and friendly. Although sometimes a shadow of fatigue flashed across their faces. Returning to our small hotel on the shores of Lac Lake, we were treated to local Amakong rum. It is infused in huge clay jugs and 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 Dak Lak province. The second day lay ahead of us with tasting real elephant coffee, visiting the villa of the last emperor of Vietnam, Bao Dai, and a trip to the Dry Nur waterfall.

IN traditional cuisine Vietnam mixes the traditions of other countries, but this does not in any way affect its uniqueness and originality. From our article you will learnthe best way to eat in Vietnam.

Specifics of Vietnamese cuisine

The choice of dishes is wide, prices in restaurants and cafes are quite loyal and affordable. It is generally accepted that Vietnamese cuisine is the most budget-friendly, but not because of its simplicity, but because of the cheapness of the ingredients. In addition to traditional food, local chefs serve Asian and European cuisine.

Seafood is very popular, but finding dishes with the types of meat we are familiar with is not at all problematic. Local residents love to eat delicious food and do not welcome restrictions and prohibitions. Real delicacies are dishes with snake, turtle, rat meat and game. At some resorts they prepare ostrich, crocodile, snake, frog and dog meat - a real paradise for lovers of extreme exotics. There is an opinion that the Vietnamese love to eat insects, but this is not true. If you want to eat bugs and larvae, go to Thailand and Cambodia.

The Vietnamese are used to eating in groups, so the tables are set with large plates with several dishes in each. They take out food with chopsticks. This rule does not apply to tourists, so food is served in the usual way for us.

Vietnamese food is not spicy, which is why many tourists like it. Once in this country, you don’t need to immediately dive into local dishes, since they are not familiar to the European body. In order not to harm the gastrointestinal tract, you need to accustom it to new foods gradually. Almost all establishments offer dishes that are familiar to us. Due to the large influx of Russian tourists, catering establishments serving Russian cuisine began to open.

The main ingredient of Vietnamese dishes is rice. There are several dozen types of it in the country, from “classic” (in our understanding) to sticky, black and red. In principle, this is a completely normal phenomenon, since Vietnam is the second country in the world specializing in the cultivation and export of rice. It is logical that local residents constantly use this product for cooking.

The second popular dish is rice flour noodles. There is also an egg one, but it is not so in demand. It can be thin or thick. It is the main ingredient in Pho soup, fried with meat and vegetables.

Fermented milk products are not popular among the Vietnamese, but they are still sold. The cost is about the same as ours. Local residents prefer tofu, which is why it can often be found in the dishes of local chefs.

Vegetables and herbs are obligatory “participants” of any feast. They are used as components of a cooked dish or as a side dish for meat, fish or rice. Specific aromas are achieved with the help of lemongrass and mint, onion-garlic mixture, fresh ginger bark and soy sauce. Traditional fish sauce is served with almost all dishes.

What to try

Some tourists claim that in comparison with the cuisine of others Asian countries, Vietnamese is quite boring. Her dishes have a sweetish aftertaste, so you have to add salt. There is no “pure” salt; instead, you can “salt” the dish with soy or fish sauces. Even if you are knowledgeable about Asian cuisine, in Vietnam you should definitely try:

Rice with chicken, pork, egg and vegetable additives. This dish is the most affordable and popular and perfectly satisfies hunger. It is rice with additives that you determine yourself. Some cooks fry the rice in a wok.

Pho. A favorite dish of locals. This is the name for a soup with pieces of meat, rice noodles, herbs and sprouted sprouts. It is usually consumed in the morning. There is no single way to prepare this soup, but it always amazes with its pleasant smell and amazing taste. It is extremely rare for tourists to be dissatisfied with this delicacy.

Spring rolls/German This delicious dish was invented in China, but has been considered traditional Vietnamese for several centuries. Is a wrapped rice pancake with fried vegetables and glass vermicelli. At the client's request, seafood and finely chopped meat can be added. The stuffed roll is deep fried until crispy. If you are a vegetarian, the roll will not be fried. Rolls are traditionally eaten with spicy, sweet or sour fish sauce. When ordering spring rolls, check with the waiter what exactly this will be, since some establishments under this name offer fried homemade sausage.

Chao/Tiao. It is a thick rice porridge with finely chopped chicken or beef. Rice is boiled in water until it softens and becomes mushy (chao). Then fish sauce and lemongrass are added to it. Chao should be eaten hot. It helps relieve indigestion.

Boone. They are rice vermicelli in the form of tiny rolls. Each chef can prepare it according to his own recipe, but the taste is always amazing. For example, some add fried pork, others add river snails, and still others add beef.

Banh com. This is the name of a popular Vietnamese dessert in the form of cakes wrapped in banana leaves. To prepare them, sticky rice, coconut and peas are used.

What else to eat and where

If you have money, you will never go hungry. Numerous street eateries, cafes and restaurants offer food to suit every budget. The minimum cost of a dish for one is only 84 rubles. In large Vietnamese cities you can dine at the usual establishments of KFC, Burgerking and McDonalds. A meal of several dishes and a drink will cost at least 280 rubles. The cost of food and drinks depends on the class of the establishment where you eat. In the territory popular resorts food is much more expensive. Remember, a dish with high-quality seafood is an expensive pleasure, so if you find it at a low price, don’t rush to rejoice. Most likely, there will be nothing from seafood there.

Drinks in restaurants and cafes are sold at a small premium. For example, in a store a bottle of beer costs 10 thousand dong, in a cafe – 12 thousand. Agree, quite acceptable.

Since locals do not like to cook at home, there are many different eateries available for them. Here you can eat tasty and inexpensive food. The serving size is simply huge, so it’s better to take one for two. The only negative is the small selection of dishes. Of course, this snack is not for everyone. Few people agree to eat food from not very clean plates, the preparation of which was unlikely to comply with hygienic standards. The Vietnamese are not very squeamish, so it is not scary for them to eat from a bowl that has recently been run over by a rat.

In certain establishments they will cook a snake in front of your eyes. Moreover, the whole process will be accompanied by a fascinating performance. Finding such eateries is difficult because they are “hidden” in remote areas. You'll have to pay a lot for a snake dish, but it's worth it.

In certain Vietnamese areas, rat meat is considered a great delicacy. Therefore, if you want to taste such exotic things, visit the city of Chau Doc. Don't think that locals constantly eat frogs, rats and snakes. The meat of these individuals is very expensive, so few Vietnamese can afford it even in honor of the holiday.

Eating store-bought products is expensive and pointless. As a rule, in small shops the prices for our usual products are very high. But if you find yourself near large chain supermarkets, you can buy everything you need at affordable prices.

If you need an urgent snack, you can buy a crispy baguette stuffed with cheese, vegetables and meat. Baguettes are sold from trays, the price of one is 23 rubles.

What can you drink

In Vietnam you can enjoy not only delicious cuisine, but also drinks.

Coffee

The most popular drink is coffee. It, like the baguette, has remained in Vietnamese cuisine since the time when the country was a French colony. In some years, Vietnam overtook Brazil in supplying coffee to other countries. Here you can taste the already familiar Arabica, mocha, Luwak and Robusta. Often establishments offer to taste coffee made from several varieties.

Vietnamese coffee has an amazing aroma. After the first sip you will feel a pleasant chill and freshness. The drink is prepared directly in the cup using a special metal filter. It is placed on a cup, filled with coffee, pressed down and hot water is poured on top. The coffee gradually seeps into the cup. You need to wait 5 minutes for the drink to brew a little and cool down, and you can already drink it. Here it is customary to add ice, condensed milk and even an egg to coffee.

The drink with the latter addition turns out to be very smooth. It is mainly served in the northern part of the country. The coffee just melts in your mouth. First you will feel the sweetish taste of beaten egg yolks with sugar, and only then the strong, pleasantly bitter taste of the coffee itself. The drink can be consumed cold or hot.

Green tea

Vietnamese people love OLONG tea. It is a little expensive, but the price is fully compensated by its amazing taste, aroma and beneficial properties. Artichoke tea is worth trying. It is available in two forms: resin for dissolving in boiling water and ordinary dried leaves.

Sugarcane juice

Popular national drink. Mixed with lime, kumkuwat and tangerine juices. To slightly dilute the thickness of the drink, add ice. The drink must be drunk very quickly. The cane juice itself is also delicious and perfectly quenches thirst. The price of “liquid pleasure” is 7,000 dong. Cane juice is squeezed out using a special machine right in front of you.

Rice vodka

Once in Vietnam, you should definitely try rice vodka. The best one is called Hanoi, after the capital. The strength of the drink varies between 30-40 degrees. It is not recommended to drink rice moonshine on your own, as there is a huge risk of poisoning.

Without fruit you can't go anywhere

Thanks to its unique climate, Vietnam is full of different fruits. We will list only the most exotic ones.

Mango

Vietnamese mangoes are completely different from those sold in our stores. You will feel it after the first bite. The fact is that ripe fruits immediately appear on the shelves of stores and markets. Mangoes ripen in March-July. There are several varieties of this fruit and each of them is delicious in its own way. We recommend trying seedless varieties. Their price is a little higher than others.

Durian

This “royal fruit” is famous for its unusual smell, which not everyone can stand. It is forbidden to eat it in in public places, bring it to the hotel premises and take it on the plane. But if you are resistant to odors, then as a reward you will receive a delicate creamy filling with a pleasant fruity taste.

Jackfruit

Breadfruit. It smells as rich as durian. It is better to buy it already cut, since the whole fruit is sticky and large. It has an original taste. Locals prefer to use it as a side dish for hot dishes.

Sapodilla

It bears fruit constantly, so it is available for sale at any time. Externally similar to kiwi, only brown. The taste is reminiscent of persimmon; there is a hard seed inside. Overripe fruit is very sweet and leaves behind a honey aftertaste.

Now you know what you can pamper yourself with in Vietnam. To avoid spending your entire vacation in your room suffering from gastrointestinal upset, try to consume everything in moderation. Any delicacy is always in abundance here, so there is no need to rush to try everything on the first day. Try to eat a maximum of 2 fruits and 1 exotic dish per day, and then you will have only positive emotions from your vacation.

Super User

Is Vietnamese cuisine so diverse and what should you absolutely not eat?

When going to Vietnam, you probably read a lot useful information and, naturally, they paid great attention to Vietnamese cuisine, which, according to many, is very exotic. Is it really? Here I will talk about how Vietnamese families really eat, what food in Vietnam popular

and is Vietnamese cuisine 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. Without rice, neither a Vietnamese breakfast, nor lunch, nor dinner is unthinkable. Rice is always on the table! In cafes, they often bring an extra portion of rice for free, because they have rice like we have bread. Vietnamese cuisine cannot imagine a single dish, with the exception of soups, without rice.

Rice in Vietnam is cooked exclusively in rice cookers, which the Vietnamese buy, as a rule, for a long time. One rice cooker can serve a family for several years, being used 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 purchased in huge, twenty-kilogram bags. An ordinary Vietnamese family of four to five people eats 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 spreadable like porridge, and the hard grains of rice seem to be stuck together with glue. Unfortunately, this variety 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 were visiting told us a secret: they buy Thai rice because it tastes better! Having traveled all over Vietnam, we have no doubt about this, since the Vietnamese cannot do something simply normally. Even the Vietnamese themselves admitted that Thai rice tastes better. Yes, it’s more expensive, but they 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, yes, everyone eats this 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. They won’t cook a snake or a rat at home just like that, without a special reason. The Vietnamese families we visited did not eat dogs or cats either.

A Vietnamese table looks like this:

Plates with meat, fish and vegetables are placed in the center, as well as a large bowl of broth, and rice is placed in each bowl. You can pour broth into the rice, put pieces of meat and vegetables on top, or you can immediately put them in your mouth, picking them up from a common plate with chopsticks. Bowls small size, because in Vietnam it is considered indecent to put too much on yourself, as if you are greedy. This is how our Vietnamese friend explained it to us. You can ask for more rice as much as you like, but the meat runs out very quickly, since it is served only 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 couldn’t understand how the Vietnamese could eat so little.

Vietnamese cuisine on city streets.

Now about what kind of Vietnamese cuisine you will encounter during independent travel what you can eat and what you should avoid.

First I want to note that the food in Vietnam is always fresh! No cafe will leave food prepared in the morning to sell it at lunchtime or in the evening. Due to the heat, food quickly spoils, and people avoid cafes that serve stale food.

Cafes are divided into morning and evening. The former work from 5-6 am until lunch, the latter 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). The food is prepared right there, nothing that can spoil is stored! During our entire two-month stay in Vietnam, we never got poisoned by food in a cafe! If possible, add pepper to your food, which is on the tables, it disinfects.

Traveling on your own, by bus, plane or motorcycle, and not having a large budget to go to a restaurant every day, you will eat in small private cafes, which are everywhere in Vietnam. The food in such cafes does not differ in variety. There are, of course, originals whose soup is not the same as everyone else’s, snails with rice and vegetables that taste unusual, but there are few such cafes.

Mostly you will see signs that say COM (rice) or PHO (soup). It happens that in one cafe they serve both soup and rice, then you can eat to your heart's content! And the first, and the second, and they’ll also give you tea!

COM (Fig)

Rice is served, as a rule, with a piece of meat (mostly pork or chicken), in some places a fried egg is also placed on top (or a boiled brown one, prepared using a special Vietnamese technology), and a small bowl of broth is always served with the rice. We often poured this broth over the rice so that it would not be so dry. But they don’t give broth everywhere! The meat in such cafes is often fatty, so if your body does not tolerate fatty, fried foods, then it is better to see how it is prepared before ordering food. This will not be difficult, since the kitchens are located directly in the room where visitors eat.

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

Very tasty fried rice, in Vietnamese it is called Comrank, but it is rare to be found anywhere. Just ask, maybe you'll get lucky.

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

PHO (Soup)

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

Soups are mainly based on 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 confused, everywhere they serve soup it says Bo - beef, Ga - chicken, or Lon - pork. Just point your finger, and in 5 minutes they bring you the desired dish.

The soup is always served with greens or bean sprouts. Please note that some Vietnamese mix greens directly into the soup and eat this kind of vinaigrette. I preferred to chew greens 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: you take chopsticks in your right hand, and a spoon in your left. You fish out the noodles with chopsticks, place them on a spoon and pop them into your mouth. With the spoon in your left hand you slurp the broth, and with the chopsticks in your right hand you catch pieces of meat in the soup. I understand that it’s not very convenient, but after a few training sessions you will even like this technique of eating soup! 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 50,000 VND. This is already considered very expensive. Typically, 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 both Hanoi and Saigon Pho we always ate no more than 25,000 dong.

COM (rice) will cost about the same. By the way, don’t be surprised, but soups are often more expensive. Why, we still don’t understand. The price for a plate of rice with meat and egg will be approximately 25,000 – 35,000 VND.

Food in street cafes simply cannot be more expensive! Sometimes when entering a cafe you need to look around; 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 dong. There are fruits, for example, lychees, for which they ask for 70,000. Don’t be surprised, the Vietnamese pay the same. Basically, fruits cost no more than food in a cafe (price per 1 kg).

In some large cities there is a huge BIG C supermarket. There 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. At BIG C you can buy ready-made food. We loved going to this store in Hanoi, took ready-made food, a bottle of whiskey, and had a picnic near the Lake of the Returned Sword in the center of Hanoi.

Alcohol in Vietnam.

Alcohol in Vietnam is the same as here. You can run into a fake if you buy booze even in a normal store.

The taste of the beer is the same as ours. Normal beer Tiger and Heineken. Good Saigon beer.

Vietnamese whiskey Wall Street deserves special attention. Very good alcohol! It tastes good and doesn’t give you a headache in the morning. A half liter bottle costs about 100,000 VND, which is relatively inexpensive. However, one day, having bought it in a large store, we both woke up in the morning with a terrible headache. This is what I wrote about above. You can run into it everywhere. Better to buy Wall Street in BIG C.

Don’t take some strange bottles from street shops!
There is 30-degree local alcohol, which Vietnamese alcoholics and our tourists drink. In our opinion it is called Zum-Zum (I don’t know why it was called that). Below is a photo of half the label. The husband with crests drank it in Da Nang, he says it’s quite normal, but the Vietnamese shudder at the very sight. It costs 30,000 VND for a 0.5 liter bottle. (Judge for yourself what kind of alcohol can cost 1.5 dollars?).

Traditional drinks of Vietnam.

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

It will be very tasty if you squeeze 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 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 thousand dong, depending on the location. On the highway, cane juice will cost no more than 10,000 VND.

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

Ice. About ice in South-East Asia there are legends. And that they store 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 still the case! We ourselves were surprised, because we thought that these were just fairy tales, however, when we saw HOW they add ice to drinks, our fantasies about the civilization of the Vietnamese dissipated.

Try not to take drinks with ice! Ice for cafes is bought in briquettes and cut on the ground (it’s the same in Cambodia).

One day we wanted to drink iced tea, but when we saw how they wanted to prepare this tea for us, we quickly pulled the plug.

Here is how it was. We drive up to a cafe and ask them to make us iced tea. A grandmother working in a cafe approached a bathtub standing on the street, covered with a concrete slab on top (maybe not concrete, but very similar), and moved this slab away. There was ice there! It was covered with sand and some grains. She began to shake it all off with her palm, then 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 happening and retreated.

Iced coffee is made the same way. Some people chop ice in special bags, but often they simply take a piece of ice in their hand and chop it with the blunt side of a knife. Then they collect the resulting ice fragments from the table with their hands and pour them into your cup.

I hope you don't think anyone is wearing gloves?

Where can I eat?

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

Always ask how much the food costs before you sit down! If they refuse to tell you the price, or say something incomprehensible, or say, “Sit down, we’ll sort it out later,” under no circumstances should you eat in such a cafe! Leave immediately and do not respond to further persuasion! You can get into a lot of trouble!!!

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

Stop where people are sitting. If there are a lot of people in the cafe, it means that the establishment is proven and popular with the local population because it is tasty and inexpensive. Pay also attention to the transport standing near the cafe. If there are mopeds there, feel free to go in. This means that food there is inexpensive and locals prefer this cafe. If there are mainly cars, then, as a local resident explained to us, food will be expensive, since this is already something like a restaurant.

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

If there is no one in the cafe, they tell you 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).

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

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

Secondly, look at the kind of dogs they eat!

(poor dogs, sorry).

These dogs were caught 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, which are not killed by heat treatment. Do you need it?

I have no doubt that the situation is the same with cats. We did not see stray 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 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 anything!

You, of course, 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 own favorite dishes. You may even think that what is written here is complete nonsense and share your discoveries in the field of Vietnamese cuisine. If so, then I will only be happy with additions and amendments!

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

Oh this one Vietnamese cuisine! Bon appetit, so to speak!