Một số bài thuốc từ nghệ rất đơn giản

 Một số phương thuốc từ tinh bột nghệ đen nguyên chất rất đơn giản mà hiệu quả
- Chữa giun đũa, giun kim: Lấy 1 thìa cafe dịch ép từ nghệ tươi thêm vào đó một nhúm muối, trộn đều và cho trẻ uống vào sáng sớm lúc bụng đói.

- Chữa chứng thiếu máu: Mỗi ngày uống 1 muỗng dịch ép từ củ nghệ đen tươi pha với mật ong trong nhiều ngày.
- Chữa hen suyễn:  Một thìa cafe Tinh bột nghệ hòa với một ly sữa, uống 2-3 lần trong ngày, nên uống lúc bụng đói.

- Chữa cảm lạnh, ho: Nửa muỗng bột nghệ hòa trong 30 ml sữa ấm, uống mỗi ngày để chữa ho. Khi bị cảm lạnh thì đun nhẹ hỗn hợp này trên bếp, ngửi và hít hơi.

Một số bài thuốc từ nghệ rất đơn giản

- Chữa bong gân sưng đau nhức: Tinh Bột nghệ trộn với chanh và muối thành bột nhão rồi bó vào chỗ bong gân, làm trong vài lần.

- Chữa thủy đậu trong trường hợp mụt nước mới mọc: Củ nghệ nướng thành tro, lấy tro hòa trong 1 tách nước lọc, bôi vào các chỗ thủy đậu. Nên sắc nước bột nghệ và uống thêm sẽ giúp mau lành bệnh.
- Giúp sởi mau phát và chóng khỏi bệnh: Củ nghệ khô nghiền thành bột, lấy 1 muỗng bột nghệ hòa vài giọt mật ong, trộn chung với 1 muỗng dịch ép lá bầu hoặc bí, uống 2-3 lần trong ngày.

Food in Ha Giang Vietnam

1. Ha Giang stone bryophyte, Ha Giang Vietnam

Bryophyte is a special food of ethnic minorities in Ha Giang province. The food is made from it called “que”. Bryophyte is not only delicious dish but also good for your health.
Local people usually choose the great and fresh bryophyte. Next , people will clean it and make into many dishes such as fried bryophyte, dried bryophyte but the most delicious dish is bryophyte mixed with spices and grilled. North Vietnam tours
When grill, people cannot turn it several times but grill one side then grill the other. Since bryophyte dish depends on season people often make dried bryophyte. Special customers are eaten the special dish: dried bryophyte. Grilled bryophyte not only is favorite food of ethnic people but also can cure many diseases, help blood stability, detoxification, blood circulation, blood stability, heat stability and strengthening resistance. Halong bay cruise

2. Ha Giang Dried Buffalo, Ha Giang Vietnam

Dried buffalo is special food in Ha Giang. This meat is usually made from buffaloes and cows on the northwest mountain. With the dried buffalo, the flavor of smoke is almost intact. The processing techniques are traditional secret but products are quite homogeneous. People use some spices such as pepper, ginger, especially “mac khen”- a type of forest pepper of Northwest upland ethnic minorities.
Today, cultural exchange scale between ethnic people becomes more and more develop, dried buffalo not only is the dish of the Thai but also follows the guests to nationwide. Therefore, the method to enjoy this dish is different and depends on each place. Mekong river tours
If the Thai often enjoys their special dish instead of eating foods, especially on the rain, floods or lack of food… but now, this dish can be served with hot pot or baking dish.

Food in Ha Giang Vietnam

3. Ha Giang Au Tau Porridge , Ha Giang Vietnam

In Ha Giang, there have many unique dishes that visitors cannot forget. Au Tau porridge is special dish. Tourists can enjoy all flavors in a bowl of porridge: flavors of “au tau”, leaf spices… Bowl of Au Tau porridge looks very attractive by the harmony between rice, herbs, meat…
Many people come to Ha Giang, if they have been enjoying once they will seek to eat again. Au Tau porridge is not only the normal dish but also a tonic medicine to cure sick. Au Tau porridge in Ha Giang has had all time in the year, but it sold only at night. In the winter, sitting in a warm space and enjoying the Au Tau porridge is exciting and suitable for people who love exploring new things.

Ha Giang Au Tau Porridge

4. Shan Tuyet Tea in Ha Giang, Ha Giang Vietnam

Ha Giang is one of the provinces has the oldest Shan tea area in the country. It is Shan tea with big leaves, many snow-white hair covered buds and have good quality. So that people called Shan tuyet.
In Ha Giang, Shan Tuyet tea located throughout most of the districts in which the ancient tea areas have 300-1000meters height. So far, some areas of province has highly specific for the an ecological tea such as: Lung Phin, Phin Ho, Tham Ve, Bo Duot,… that represents the oldest tea area of Vietnam. This is the local that produces the famous Shan Tuyet tea. The reputation of Shan Tuyet tea conquered not only the consumers but also the connoisseurs in enjoying tea.

Travel guide to the Mekong Delta and Islands

 Zoom Bai Sao beach, Phu Quoc Island, Copyright: Peter Stuckings / Apa Publications
Bai Sao beach, Phu Quoc Island
This lush, tropical delta – totally dominated by and dependent on Southeast Asia’s mightiest river, the Mekong – makes a fascinating region to explore, best by boat and on one of numerous organised tours from HCMC. Relatively unspoilt, Phu Quoc Island, Vietnam’s largest, is a tropical getaway renowned for white-sand beaches, but its wild beauty is also a haven for nature-lovers.

Mekong Delta Cruise

Once a hostile swampland, the French drained this region, transforming it into lucrative plantations, paddy fields and mines. Most of the chemical herbicides sprayed during the Vietnam War fell over the Mekong Delta, denying the Viet Cong cover and in the process decimating agricultural lands and mangrove forests. Yet today, the Mekong Delta is Vietnam’s most productive agricultural area, producing nearly half of the nation’s annual food crop. Image Cruise Halong Bay

Travel guide to the Mekong Delta and Islands

Nutrient-rich deposits carried by the Mekong River and its comprehensive network of waterways and nine tributaries (hence the local name, ‘River of Nine Dragons’) makes this region extraordinarily fertile for rice, bananas, coconuts, trop­ical fruit and sugar cane. It’s this very luscious, intensively cultivated landscape and rustic way of life that make this area so picturesque and appealing. Secluded waterways with overhanging foliage lined with stilt houses, mangrove swamps, paddy fields, fruit orchards and welcoming locals make up much of the scenario.

Mekong & Phu Quoc island (5 days, 4 nights)

Independent travel can be frustrating – transport is basic, time-consuming and water-based – so for less hassle, inclusive tours are the best way to experience this area. Many tours incorporate visits by small boats to fruit orchards, cottage industries, Khmer temples, early-morning floating markets, or penetrate deep into a labyrinth of narrow waterways. Increasingly, some incorporate bicycle trips, home stays or one-way boat tours terminating in Phnom Penh (Cambodia).

Places to visit on the Mekong

My Tho y is the first stop out of HCMC; done to death by tourism over the years, westward hubs like Vinh Long, Ben Tre, Cai Be and Can Tho afford more authentic experiences, less rushed in multi-day tours. Further west, Chau Doc offers Khmer ethnic communities, floating fish farms and Sam Mountain, with sacred pagodas and sweeping views. Across the Cambodian border, Ca Mau National Park and Tram Chim National Park are important havens for water birds. The more remote west coast is far less touristy, with the sleepy fishing port of Ha Tien, plus Rach Gia, the launch pad for Phu Quoc Island, 62 nautical miles west.

Phu Quoc Island

Located in the Gulf of Thailand, a few kilometres from southern Cambodia, Vietnam’s largest island seems a world away. Despite being a natural tropical paradise, Phu Quoc’s tourism industry is still small, although there are several resorts already. It has a wild, ­frontier-like ambience, with basic infrastructure (roads are mainly dirt tracks). Offshore fishing, fermented fish sauce and pepper cultivation are the main activities; the island is around the size of Singapore (593 sq km/229 sq miles) and Duong Dong is the only settlement of any size. If you seek a more simplified, back-to-nature existence, this island is for you.

Formerly an island prison camp, today Phu Quoc’s main raison d’être is some of Vietnam’s most magnificent beaches – some of the whitest and most deserted. The main resort area runs down the southwest’s coconut palm tree-lined beach, but with many other beautiful beaches and coves, other more secluded boltholes are available. There is also superb scuba-diving and snorkelling, offering transparent turquoise waters with colourful reefs teeming with fish, many native to Vietnamese waters. Boat trips for diving, snorkelling and fishing are easily arranged.

The mountainous interiors are mostly forested, and much of this is protected as a national park, where hiking possibilities abound. And as Vietnam’s most western point, this is the only place you can watch the sun set all the way.

Street food saigon

After two winters of stuffing my face around town, I thought I would put together a guide to Saigon street food, gathering some of the places I love in one place. These are not the absolute best of everything, but rather a cross-section of delicious, cheap and authentic foods that are also conveniently located. I tended to head to outer districts more often, on the hunt for that bun mam a friend told me about, or what was billed as “the best Peking duck in town” by my enthused landlady. While fun side trips to outer districts are great, I wanted to put together a post that would be more helpful for short-term trips. The restaurants and street stalls below are fairly central to where most travellers stay, meaning people can frequent them even if in town only briefly. South Vietnam tours

Fasten your seatbelts, people: this post is close to 10,000 words long.

The focus is, of course, food. One specific soup, a sweet-and-sour canh chua (photo in the “street food” section below), was what initially led me to the city. I was lured in by the complicated tastes and unfamiliar sting of the rice paddy herb on my tongue. It might have been one soup that brought me to Saigon, but it was the rest of the food that kept me there, and keeps me coming back. It is not just taste of food that makes Saigon so enthralling, but the act of eating as well, and all of the craziness that eating comprises. The swirling noise, the families all sitting and enjoying a meal on the street, smiling at you fumbling with your condiments. The beauty of food being not just a necessity but also a sight in and of itself: a window into culture, and a source of endless wonder.

Mekong & Phu Quoc island (5 days, 4 nights)

Street food saigon

Countless moments of me smiling as an old lady came over shaking her head at my terrible rice paper folding skills, correcting my technique as we sat at the edge of traffic. Or the bo la lot vendor who discovered my love of starfruit and made sure to have extra on hand when I returned. The beloved grandpa at the pho ga restaurant below, who ran over to my bowl repeatedly to ensure I added pickled garlic, lest I forget. The landladies that adopted me into their homes, feeding me, giving me hugs, teaching me how to cook. HO CHI MINH CITY’S CENTRAL POST OFFICE, VIETNAM

There are hundreds of moments like these baked into the aggregate of my memories in Vietnam. Most of them derive from food. As Luke Nguyen says in The Songs of Sapa: Stories & Recipes from Vietnam,

Street food saigon
Streetside eating.
This is not an exhaustive list, but hopefully it provides a good start. Yes, I know I could have offered this post as an e-book for sale (thank you to those suggesting this already), but I’d prefer to have it freely available. If you want to support the site, pick up my book about travel and food, or a t-shirt in the shop instead.

Or, for those of you who loved your time in Vietnam and want to commemorate it at home with something a bit more tangible, please see my hand-drawn, one-of-a-kind Vietnamese maps of food. They’re available in t-shirt and poster form.
Hand-drawn typographic food map of Vietnam
I also realize some of you would have preferred diacritical marks in lieu of plain Roman letters, but when typing into Google Maps to find these places, most travellers have indicated they prefer the non-Tieng Viet script. I’m happy to update the post if this is no longer the case.

I should also note that I’ve never gotten sick from eating street food in Saigon, and I’ve eaten at all sorts of places, dodgy or otherwise. The culture of food is so prevalent that fast turnover and fresh ingredients rule the roost. At 4pm when I want soup, there is usually a gaggle of other people also chowing down. I joke that I graze like a cow, eating mini meals every few hours, and Saigon is an ideal place to do so. One can eat through the country as a whole — foods from the North and South, the Central region and the Mekong Delta — all in one city.

Saigon is most definitely a magical place for your tastebuds. The balancing act between warming and cooling ingredients, between heavier meats and lighter rice-based carbs, fresh herbs to round out the taste, never get old. I’m no culinary anthropologist, but in learning through eating, and being corrected by others also passionate about food, I’ve hopefully created a crash course here that will help travellers discover more about the city. For celiacs like me, I have included tips for gluten-free eating. I’ve also added a long basics for navigating Saigon section at the end, in the vein of my other “crash courses“. Here you’ll find information about taxis, visas, foot massages and more.

I’ve tried to include as many photos of these foods as possible, since my descriptions might not do the trick but a photo usually does. These are all my pictures, except for the bun moc (thanks Tom!).

Finally, I plan to put these all onto a Google Map, but haven’t done so yet as I’m tethering to 3G in Greece. I’ll update the post when it is in map form.

Banh Beo
Banh beo from Nam Giao in Saigon
Part of the cuisine from central Vietnam, banh beo (literally “water fern cake”) are small round discs of rice flour, formed to look like lily flower pads found in the estates surrounding the old imperial city of Hue. Topped with crunchy pork rinds and toasted shrimp powder and served with fish sauce, they are a very rewarding dish to share as they usually come in multiples of 8 or 10.

Where: Nam Giao
136 Le Thanh Ton Street, in an alleyway behind Ben Thanh market. District 1
+84 (8) 3825 0261

Banh Da Xuc Hen

Banh Da Xuc Hen in all its delicious glory.
I have a list of foods that sound like other foods in the local language. For example, the word for water in Bahasa Indonesia or Bahasa Malaysia is “air” — and obviously air in English is not food. In Vietnamese, the word for baby clams is “hen” — quite confusing at first, since I ordered it expecting a rice and chicken bowl, not even thinking that obviously hen would not be an actual hen. My brain did not compute.

Banh da xuc hen is a lovely and satisfying snack. A large rice paper crisp with hints of sesame and coconut arrives on a plate. It looks bare, but then you lift up the rice cracker and peek underneath, finding a pile of teeny tiny clams fried in lemongrass, rau ram (Vietnamese coriander), chilli, onion and garlic. It is a simple dish in terms of ingredients but the taste is profoundly different than anything else I have tried. If you want a heavier version of this plate, opt for the com hen, rice topped with the same type of clams and served with a small bowl of clam broth on the side.