Stay up late to watch for the land's fortune. If you win, you can earn 5 million VND in 1 hour.

Following the "hunter" of termite mushrooms

I was in Phan Thiet when I received a phone call from my nephew in Bac Ruong commune, Tanh Linh, telling him to go to Nam Phan Thiet bus station to pick up 2 kg of termite mushrooms to eat. Surprised, I asked where they got so many termite mushrooms, and he said he had just "hunted" them this morning so he sent them to me to eat. This year, there is a good season for termite mushrooms, if you are interested, come and experience picking termite mushrooms with me...

From Phan Thiet, I drove my motorbike to Bac Ruong, more than 100 km when it was just getting dark, thinking that I would be late for the trip to "hunt" for termite mushrooms with my nephew, but he calmly told me to rest first, sleep and go when I call. Around 3am, Chau - my nephew woke me up after preparing a flashlight and a mushroom picking tool made of a bamboo stalk sharpened into the shape of a knife with a sharp blade.

Seeing the bamboo knife, I wondered why he didn't use a Thai knife or another knife but had to make a bamboo knife instead of wasting time. Chau laughed and said that termites are very sensitive to metal. Many people who don't know often use a trowel to get it easily, but that way the termites won't grow back next year. Chau and I were accompanied by three of his friends from the same neighborhood: Teo, Duc, and Thanh.

In the group, Teo is the one with the most experience in picking termite mushrooms, because in previous years, Teo had returned to Gia Huynh, more than 50 km from home, to stay for a whole month to "hunt" for termite mushrooms to sell to traders from Ho Chi Minh City who came to "collect" the goods.

Five people used flashlights to split up and go to the cashew gardens planted on high ground more than 1 km from the house, where termite mounds often swarm during the rainy season. I wondered: Why do you keep looking in termite mounds and places with rotten trees?

Because of many years of mushroom picking experience, when I asked Teo, he explained quite simply and without any scientific basis that… termite mushrooms are born from termites, so they must grow near termite mounds where termites live. In addition, termites often eat wood, and when they eat, the substance in their bodies is secreted and condenses near the wood. At this time, the wood has rotted, so mushrooms will grow more than elsewhere?!

Rủ nhau thức canh lộc đất, nếu trúng ổ 1 tiếng kiếm 5 triệu đồng - 1 — The result after 2 hours of hunting for termite mushrooms.

The group spent more than 2 hours searching through the cashew and rubber gardens of the locals. They even "encountered" dozens of other people in the commune who were also using lamps to "hunt" for mushrooms. Chau and I only picked about 1 kg. Chau said that today we were "unlucky" because we didn't go to the right place for the mushrooms to grow, so we lost the harvest. On the contrary, when the group in the commune met and asked each other, they bragged that someone had picked about 3 - 4 kg.

At nearly 5am, the group was about to leave when Teo suddenly told them to wait a moment, "Let me go in here and see." Chau asked if there was a bunch of rotten trees that we picked last year in the termite mound. Teo just said yes and then "slipped" forward... About 10 minutes later, Teo shouted, "Guys, come in here." The whole group quickly ran to Teo's place.

Before my eyes was a dense clump of mushrooms, big and small, growing together. In addition, before we arrived, Teo had picked more than half of the basket, estimated to be nearly 5 kg…

Rủ nhau thức canh lộc đất, nếu trúng ổ 1 tiếng kiếm 5 triệu đồng - 2 — Termite mushrooms are bought for no less than 500 thousand VND/kg.

Preserving the source of "land fortune"…

At the beginning of the rainy season, termite mushrooms often grow on hillsides, in cashew and rubber gardens... quite a lot in the areas stretching from Tuy Phong onwards, but the most are still in the districts of Ham Thuan Bac, Ham Thuan Nam, Ham Tan, Duc Linh, but the most must be mentioned in Tanh Linh... However, it has taken more than 5 years for Tanh Linh to have such a bustling and exciting "termite mushroom hunting" season again...

Remember in 2017, in Gia Huynh, Suoi Kiet (Tanh Linh) and Tra Tan, Tan Ha (Duc Linh) areas, at the same time, termite mushrooms grew thickly under the canopy of rubber forests and cashew gardens. When discovering a lot of termite mushrooms, everyone "called" each other to go pick them, at the same time, traders in Ho Chi Minh City heard the news and sent refrigerated trucks to Tanh Linh area to wait for mushroom pickers to come and buy mushrooms.

At that time, rubber tappers and local people earned millions of dong a day from picking mushrooms, creating a "fever" of Tanh Linh and Duc Linh termite mushrooms that resounded throughout the country... Natural termite mushrooms are milky white, 5 - 20 cm tall, depending on the harvest time, the mushrooms have a ruffled cap. When the mushrooms are newly sprouted, there is an ash-colored coating on the top of the cap. The larger the mushroom's cap is, the lighter the ash color will be and the quality will also decrease compared to when used while still in bud.

During this season, most of the people in the countryside in the province, especially farmers, often go to "watch" the areas where termite mushrooms often grow to pick them. Professional mushroom pickers for sale on the market often use the term "hunting" for mushrooms. Because mushroom "hunters" have to watch the time when the mushrooms just poke their heads out of the ground about 2 cm to pick them. At this time, the mushroom buds will have the highest price. If the mushroom buds are left to bloom, the quality of the mushroom will decrease, so the price will also decrease a lot.

At first, people went mushroom picking just for fun, the price was also affordable for rural people. However, when urban people "inhaled" the termite mushroom dish, it became a specialty and created a bustling market when in season. In Duc Linh, people in Tra Tan, Tan Ha, Da Kai, Sung Nhon, Me Pu often go mushroom picking in cashew, rubber or other fruit gardens such as durian, coffee...

In Ham Thuan Bac from Dong Tien up to La Da, Da Mi, there are also many coffee and fruit gardens, but most of these areas have only a few "domestic consumptions". Especially in Tanh Linh, termite mushrooms are abundant, stretching from Suoi Kiet to Duc Phu. However, the most abundant area is Gia Huynh, where there are tens of thousands of hectares of rubber and is also the "kingdom" of termite mushrooms.

Due to favorable weather conditions and characteristics such as the dry season when rubber trees shed their leaves, small dry rubber branches covered in leaves when it rains become delicious bait for termites, so termite mushrooms produce quite a lot. Many experienced termite mushroom harvesters will not pull them all out, often leaving a little so that termites will have roots to grow next year.

Then the following year they come back to this spot to harvest a new batch of termite mushrooms. For them, this is to preserve the "genes" of natural termite mushrooms so they can eat them for a long time. But many times, without knowing, they take everything, so there are years when there are no termite mushrooms at all...

This year, the price of termite mushrooms sold on the market is only about 500,000 - 550,000 VND/kg, but if you buy them at resale points, the price will not be less than 700,000 VND/kg, especially mushrooms that have just opened their heads, the price of bud mushrooms will be much higher. My group also earned quite a lot of termite mushrooms that day.

As for Teo, in addition to the portion for his family to eat, he sold more than 10 kg to a mushroom collector, earning 5 million VND from "land luck" in one mushroom "hunting" session. For me, experiencing "hunting" for termite mushrooms and enjoying the natural specialty "land luck" was very interesting...

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