Le Mat Traditional snake village: A Mysterious and Legandary Village.

Gia Lam- a district locates on the outskirt of Hanoi and is also the gateway to the West of the capital, is the place where the traditional festival of Le Mat village occurs. Le Mat village is known as “Le Mat Snake village”, which has a lot of restaurants become famous with dishes about snake and daily a large number of visitors visit here. Therefore, Viet Unique Tour would like to recommend Le Mat  traditional village tour  also owns a unique characteristic that cannot be found in anywhere.

The history of Le Mat Snake village:

Actually, accroding to the historical sources, in the 11^th century, King Ly Cong Uan moved the capital from Hoa Lu to Thang Long. In 1072, unfortunately, while Princess Ly Ngoc Hoa was walking around Thien Duc river (now it is Duong river), a dragon sinked boat and washed her away. At this time, a poor man who lived in Le Mat village and made ends meet by catching snake saving the Princess.

Although he was rewarded a lot of gold, however, this poor guy refused all of them and only asked the King a land which was located in the West of Thang Long citadel to reclaim the farm. The King quickly agreed with this man’s requirement. After that, Le Mat villagers with this man crossed Nhi Ha river (now it is Pink River) and settled down at this site. They built up 13 villages which are called as “Thap Tam Trai”. In 1119, this man flew to heaven. To commemorate the merit of the King, the villagers always hold a snake festival on the 23^rd of March every year.

Le Mat Snake village’s special features

The festival of Le Mat Snake village:

The festival of Le Mat village is very hilarious and exciting. In the festival, the village is decorated magnificently with flags, fans and a lot of candles. On the main festival, the representatives of descendants of 13 villages in the West of ancient Thang Long citadel bring 13 gifts from the capital to the village to join in the Le Mat festival. The village’s regulations point out that the main priest must be Le Mat villager, the eldest is Van Phuc villager among 13 village camps.

In festival, Giao Long dancing always exists and it is also the main point of the festival. It is performed within 5 days, usually at noon when the rituals are done. Giao Long dancing team always includes men and women coming from Le Mat village.

The snake dishes:

Le Mat has a variety of dishes which are made of snake. With only a snake, visitors can enjoy more than a dozen dishes such as: Snake fatty steamed rice, snake noodles, or snake fried. Fried dishes include snake’s liver with eggs, powdered snake, snake stuffed meat, or snake’spring rolls. There are also many side dishes of snake like Sweet and Sour Salad with snake. In addtion, snake can also be cooked as grilled dishes such as grilled snake with five flavors, or grilled with lemon leaves. Some tasty snake dishes which are full of nutrition, for example, steamed snake with gingers, or snake hot pot.

Snake wine:

Le Mat village has long tradition of healing liquor, which has been studied in the village for a long time and classified into many types of wine. However, an ordinary bottle includes one set: Copperhead, Coluber and Snake Krait.

-          Copperhead eats rats live on the land.

-          Coluber eats frogs and insects.

-          Snake Krait lives under water.

Any visitors who come to Le Mat village once and especially having a chance to attend the village festival, enjoy specialty snake meat dishes will always dream of coming back again. Visiting Le Mat village, visitors will definitely breathe the fresh air in there, enjoy a few drops of snake wine, some pieces of snake meat and then forget the time which is filled by the chaos of normal life.

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