Hun Xen's export plan to boost trade with Vietnam [-Warning: Discretion advised, photos not suitable for the faintest heart!]

Cambodia's rats into Vietnamese specialties - Chuột Campuchia thành món ăn đặc sản Việt

Source: http://www.tindachieu.com/news/2012/05/chuot-campuchia-thanh-mon-an-dac-san-viet.html
Translation to English by Google

Đuổi chuột từ trong hang ra để bắt, với sự hỗ trợ của chú chó nhà.

And mouse from the restaurant to start, with the support of the dog house.

Chuột bị bắt nhốt trong những chiếc lồng để chờ bán.

Mouse being in captivity in small cages waiting to sell.

Thương lái mua xong, chuyển chuột ra những chiếc lồng lớn để đưa từ Campuchia về biên giới Việt Nam.

Traders purchase is complete, move the mouse to put the big cage from Cambodia to Vietnam border.

Cambodia floods spark shortage of rat meat [Rats! No more rats for the Viet!]

November 02, 2011
AFP

SO many rats have drowned in Cambodia's worst flooding in over a decade that the cross-border trade in the rodent's meat has plummeted, Prime Minister Hun Sen said.

"Each year 17 tonnes of rats are exported to Vietnam. This year there is a shortage of rats for export because the rats have died in the floods," he said, citing reports from officials at the southern Chrey Thom border checkpoint.

While there are no clear figures on the scale of the industry, rat meat is considered a cheap and tasty treat in Vietnam and the country is a keen importer of live rats from Cambodian villages along the border.

Cambodia's rats welcomed by Vietnamese gourmets

Live rats are stored awaiting transport to Vietnam at Chrey Thom district in Kandal province, 65km (40 miles) south of Phnom Penh near the Cambodia-Vietnam border, May 15, 2009. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea
A boy shows off a rat he caught at Khos Thom district in Kandal province, 65km (40 miles) south of Phnom Penh near the Cambodia-Vietnam border, May 15 ,2009. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea

2009-05-15
Xinhua

PHNOM PENH - Vietnam has become the main importer of Cambodia's rats with 50 tons of rats being imported through the checkpoints along the border everyday, local media reported on Friday.

"We are working in the rice fields during the day and catching the rat at night. We can catch about 10 kg to 20 kg rats every night, " the Chinese language newspaper Cambodia Sin Chew Daily quoted a young rat trader as saying. The rat traders could sell them at border for about 3,000 riel (about 75 cents) to 4,000 riel (about $1.00) per kilo.

At the Chrey Thom border checkpoint, immigration police officer Roeun Narin said there was regular stream of middlemen in the rat-meat trade crossing the border, and he knew of more rat-trading at other checkpoints along the border.

Leh, the rat trader in the town of Chrey Thom, by the Vietnamese border, said she buys about one ton of rats per day during April and May from middlemen who bring the rodents from Cambodia's Kandal, Kompong Cham and Takeo provinces. From November to March the haul usually drops to between 300 and 400 kg per day, she said.

Every day there are more than 30 Vietnamese middlemen waiting at the border checkpoints to purchase the rat from Cambodia, an online Vietnamese media outlet reported. The rat sales at the checkpoint of Vietnam's An Giang province alone has reached to about 50 tons in recent days, the officials of Vietnam were quoted as saying.

"Most Cambodians only know a few ways to cook it, but in Vietnam they know many dishes, such as soups, curries and fried rat," Chhoeun, another middleman said. Vietnamese enjoy the small rice-field rats, as they think they are natural.