Vietnamese Salt - the Best?
When one of your traveling friends talks about Vietnam, do you expect him or her to talk about salt? Probably not.
Instead, your friend will most likely tell you about the gorgeous rice fields. Vietnam’s rice fields are a huge attraction for tourists, especially tourists who think of themselves as budding photographers.
You might be surprised to know that other areas of Vietnam lure would-be photographers and offer unbelievable scenes to capture. In fact, Vietnam’s salt fields are one such place that are just as picturesque as rice fields – just in a different way.
And some people say that Vietnamese salt is better than any salt that can be found anywhere else in the world.
Look carefully at this photo. Doesn’t the white look like snow. It’s not. It’s salt.
In the Nha Trang area of South Vietnam, local workers have been making salt forever – or at least as long as anyone can remember.
Making salt there is the natural thing to do because the concentration of salt is high in many of the coastal waters along South Vietnam. Workers have built channels to direct salt-filled water from the sea into shallow inland fields. As the water sits there, the water evaporates as the sun dries the salt.
Workers come out at 4am and work until 9am raking and collecting salt before the heat of the sun would make work difficult. Even so, workers protect themselves from the sun with hats, and they wear rubber gloves, rubber boots, and facemasks for protection from the harsh salt.
If you want to see salt-making in progress, you’d better visit from March to July. Don’t expect to be able to communicate with workers in English, but they are friendly and welcoming.
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I upvoted your post, Kate, because it taught me something about Vietnam I had absolutely no idea about.
Great photos too. You took them?
Gary
No, I didn't take the photos. I bought them. Yeah, who would have thought salt would be a big biz in Vietnam?
Hi Kate, loved the posts and the pictures, could you please also link them to the source, if bought at least the name of the seller or photographer? Thanks
This looks fascinating. I love seeing things like this in person so if I ever get to Vietnam, I'll be sure to go when it's salt season! (Salt is a seasoning, see what I did there...?)
Very clever, Peggy. I always knew you had a way with words.
I love good sea salt. I will have to try and find some on Amazon. Thanks for the information, I never thought to associate Vietnam with salt.
Interesting idea. I'm not sure that the salt in Vietnam is identified as being from Vietnam. Kind of like the olive oil that is in supermarkets labeled as being from Italy even though a huge portion of Italy's olive oil was imported in bulk from Spain and then bottled in Italy - thus being able to label it as a product of Italy even though it was manufactured in Spain. Does that make sense? I have a feeling that Vietnam exports in bulk to other countries where it is then packaged up and labeled.
Yeah, that make sense. I check Amazon.com, they don't have it.