Le Mat Snake Village, Hanoi: Prices, the Law and the Festival

Le Mat (Lệ Mật) is the “snake village” of Hanoi: an old village now surrounded by city streets, on the east bank of the Red River in Viet Hung ward (formerly Long Bien district). It is about 7 km from the Old Quarter over Chuong Duong Bridge, 20–30 minutes by Grab depending on traffic. People come for a snake meal: you choose a live snake, it is killed and cooked, and one snake becomes a set of seven to ten dishes. Restaurants charge per snake by live weight, not per person: Vietnamnet put it at 1.2–1.4 million VND per kg in 2024, and visitors report paying roughly 300,000–500,000 VND each when two to four people share one. Before you go, read the section on the law. King cobra is a strictly protected species in Vietnam, and in two visitors’ videos from 2022 a snake sold as “king cobra” is on offer.

This guide is for deciding whether to go at all, and how to go without breaking the law or eating something you’ll regret. It doesn’t rank restaurants. Without a way to check which ones are still open and what they currently sell, naming them would be guesswork.

Why Le Mat is called the snake village

The snakes go back to a legend from the reign of Ly Thai Tong (1028–1054). A princess of the Ly dynasty was taken in the Thien Duc river, today’s Duong river, by a water monster called Giao Long. A young man of the Hoang clan from Le Mat brought her back. In some tellings he killed the monster and saved her; in others he recovered her body after a shipwreck. As his reward he asked for empty land west of the Thang Long citadel and settled people there, founding thirteen hamlets known as Thap Tam Trai. After his death the king made him the village’s guardian spirit (Thanh hoang), and he is still worshipped at the communal house, Dinh Le Mat. Tien Phong, VnExpress, Viet Nam News and Bao Phap Luat tell the story this way; Nhan Dan and Lawyers of Vietnam have the shipwreck version.

How the snake trade grew, and why it is shrinking

Le Mat families once caught wild snakes for a living. They stopped as wildlife-protection rules tightened, and switched to farming them, according to Nhan Dan (2024), Thanh Tra and Tuoi Tre (both 2025). Farming households opened restaurants, added country-style dishes to the menu, and began selling snake-skin wallets and belts, some with the national OCOP product label. In 2023–2024 Hanoi recognised the village as a city-level tourist site.

The trade is smaller now. The same papers describe a few dozen households still farming, each keeping tens of snakes, and a village cooperative of about 25–35 members. As houses replaced the old pens, space ran out, and city rules ban keeping livestock in residential areas. Tuoi Tre adds that demand from China for snake-based medicine fell away. In visitors’ videos, sellers and residents also say many of the snakes come from farms and traders outside the village, from Vinh Phuc province or the uplands, rather than from Le Mat’s own pens. That matters for the legal question below.

What a snake meal at Le Mat involves

Know what you are signing up for. In visitors’ videos, the guest picks a live snake, and it is killed and cleaned in front of them or within sight of the table. If watching an animal die is not something you want to do, this is the point to stop reading the menu and look at the festival section instead.

Next come the drinks. In visitors’ videos, the host offers three shots: a heart shot, the heart often still beating in a small glass of rice wine or vodka; a blood shot; and a bile shot, which people describe as green and very bitter. The order varies. You can say no to any of them. Hosts in several videos sell these drinks as good for men’s vitality; read the health section before you accept.

Then the food. In visitors’ videos one snake makes six to eleven dishes, usually seven to ten; packaged tours advertise ten. In visitors’ videos the same dishes keep appearing: snake spring rolls, minced fried bones scooped onto a rice cracker, crispy fried skin, the offal cooked as a separate dish, and a soup or rice porridge to finish. Jars of snake and gecko wine stand on display in many of the videos, poured for guests or sold to take away.

How much a snake meal costs

There is no official price and restaurants don’t publish menus with fixed prices. What follows is what visitors and listings report. You pay for the snake, by its live weight, and that covers the whole set of dishes cooked from it. Vietnamnet (June 2024) put it at 1.2–1.4 million VND per kg, and a 2023 travel blog at US$50–70 per kg; reports from 2016 and 2022 said about 800,000 VND. Cobra costs more than rat snake and other non-venomous snakes. Separately, a travel blog and a restaurant listing put it at roughly 300,000–500,000 VND each when two to four people share a snake, and less per head in a bigger group.

Since you are buying by the kilo, ask the price per kg for the species you are offered, watch the snake go on the scale, and agree the total before it is killed. Guided snake-food tours from Hanoi cost about US$40–110 per person with the meal included; solo travellers and private groups pay the top of that range.

Is it legal to eat snake at Le Mat?

It depends on the species and where the snake came from. Since 1 January 2026 the list of endangered, precious and rare species, and the rules on farming and selling them, are set by Circular 85/2025/TT-BNNMT of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment. It replaced Circular 27/2025, which applied in the second half of 2025. The common cobras (Naja atra, Naja kaouthia and Naja siamensis), the oriental rat snake (Ptyas mucosa) and the Burmese, reticulated and short-tailed pythons are on it in group IIB, and the king cobra in group IB. Some of the cheaper snakes sold at Le Mat are not on the list, and we have not checked their legal status.

King cobra: don’t order it

The king cobra (Ophiophagus hannah, rắn hổ chúa) is in group IB, the strictest group for animals, and on the list of priority-protected species. Under Article 244 of the Penal Code, illegally hunting, killing, keeping, transporting or trading a priority-protected species is a crime whatever the number of animals. Courts have applied it to a single snake: in 2024 a court in Lai Chau gave a man a suspended sentence for keeping one king cobra on a farm licensed only for ordinary cobras, and in 2025 a court in Bac Kan sentenced a man for transporting one king cobra and two Chinese cobras. Circular 85 leaves a narrow exception for second-generation captive-bred animals of species that the CITES scientific authority confirms can breed over several generations. A diner has no way to check that at the table.

Even so, in two visitors’ videos from 2022 the snake on offer is called a “king cobra”. Whether those really were king cobras can’t be told from a video, and it can’t be told at the table either. Don’t order anything sold as king cobra.

Cobras, rat snakes and pythons: only farm-bred stock

The common cobras (rắn hổ mang), the oriental rat snake (rắn ráo trâu) and the three pythons are in group IIB. Under Article 23 of Circular 85, animals of these species may be processed or sold only if they were bred in captivity from the second generation (F2) onwards at a farm with a registration code issued by the provincial forest protection department, legally imported or owned, or taken in an approved salvage harvest. For the cobras, which are venomous, there is no small-farm exemption: any farm keeping them needs the code. In the second half of 2025, under Article 23(1)(a) of Circular 27, first-generation (F1) animals of these species could be sold; Circular 85 raised that to F2 from 1 January 2026.

Separately, a 2020 Prime Minister’s directive (29/CT-TTg) told authorities to stop the illegal hunting, trading and consumption of wild animals, and that part of it still stands. On the village side, Tuoi Tre reports that the Le Mat cooperative requires member farms to hold full papers on the origin, species and number of their snakes. News searches in Vietnamese and English turned up no reports of inspections, seizures or fines at Le Mat restaurants between 2020 and 2026. That doesn’t mean there were none, but the farm paperwork is the one thing a visitor can ask about, and it is only as good as the restaurant that keeps it.

What to ask before you order

Ask three things: what species the snake is, which farm it came from, and whether that farm has a registration code (mã số cơ sở nuôi). A restaurant working legally should be able to answer. If they can’t say, or the answer is “from the wild” or “king cobra”, walk away. Language is the obvious problem here, and it is one good reason to go with a guide who can ask in Vietnamese and translate the answer, rather than pointing at a cage.

Health: raw blood, bile and undercooked snake

In August 2026, after a case of sparganosis (an infection with tapeworm larvae), a doctor at Hanoi’s National Hospital for Tropical Diseases advised people not to eat frog, toad or snake raw or undercooked. The warning is about raw and undercooked meat; it did not mention blood or bile shots, and we could not find specific official advice on those. The heart, blood and bile, though, are served raw. If you want to try snake, the cooked dishes are the lower-risk part of the meal. Skip the shots, and make sure the meat is cooked through.

Who should skip the snake meal

Skip it if you don’t want to watch an animal killed for your meal; in visitors’ videos it is part of the service, not something that happens out of sight. Skip it too if you care about wildlife but won’t be able to check where the snake came from. And skip the raw shots if you have a weak stomach or a health condition, for the reasons above.

For the curious, the village itself is a fair alternative. The communal house and the old well beside it are 150 m from the village gate, snake-skin goods are sold in the village, and the spring festival tells the snake legend through processions and a dance rather than a meal.

When is the Le Mat festival?

The Le Mat village festival runs from the 20th to the 24th day of the third lunar month, with the main day on the 23rd. In 2026 it opened on 6 May with a water procession and offerings at the communal house, and ran to 9 May. For 2027 the lunar calendar puts it in late April, but no date has been announced yet, so check closer to the time.

The rites, as Vietnamese papers describe them, start with a procession to bring water from the village well, and a fish-catching rite at the well. On the morning of the 23rd, delegations from the thirteen Thap Tam Trai hamlets arrive with offerings. In the communal house courtyard performers re-enact the killing of Giao Long with a giant snake made of bamboo and cloth, danced to drums. In 2026 artisans from the village cooperative also gave a show with live cobras and pythons, Tien Phong and Nhan Dan reported. In visitors’ videos, too, the 23rd, with the reception of the thirteen hamlets, is the peak day, so that is the one to aim for.

How to get to Le Mat from the Old Quarter

By Grab or taxi. The car route crosses the Red River on Chuong Duong Bridge, then follows Nguyen Van Cu and Nguyen Van Linh to Viet Hung street: about 7 km, 20 minutes in light traffic and 30 at busy times. Travel blogs from 2023–2024 put a Grab car at roughly US$4–10 one way and a GrabBike at about half that; check the app for the current fare. If Chuong Duong is jammed, the detour over Vinh Tuy Bridge adds about 5 km.

The old Long Bien Bridge is closed to cars and taxis. It is fine on a GrabBike, a rented scooter or a bicycle, and that way is about 7.8 km. Don’t count on a bus; a Grab is simpler. From Noi Bai airport it is about 25–27 km, 40–45 minutes, and you don’t cross the Red River at all.

What to combine with Le Mat

The east bank of the river has two easy pairings. Long Bien Bridge is about 5 km away, so a scooter trip can cross it on the way out and the Chuong Duong road on the way back. Bat Trang pottery village is about 12 km south along the Long Bien–Xuan Quan dyke road, roughly 30 minutes by car, also without crossing the Red River: pottery in the morning, Le Mat for lunch or dinner. For other Hanoi sights see our Hanoi attractions guide, and for less unusual food, Hanoi eating and restaurants.

Going with a guide

The Hanoi Snake Food Tour at Le Mat Village is a half-day trip of about three hours with hotel pickup in central Hanoi, leaving at 10:00 for lunch or 17:00 for dinner. It includes the ten-dish meal, snake wine and soft drinks, and a visit to a snake farm, and is listed from US$40 per person. The main advantage over going alone is having someone to ask the restaurant, in Vietnamese, what species you are being served and where it came from.

Culinary Adventure with Hanoi Snake Food Tour at Le…

0.5 day

Start from:  $40 /person

FAQ

Sources: Circular 85/2025/TT-BNNMT and its Annex I species list (Government portal); Circular 27/2025/TT-BNNMT (Ministry of Agriculture and Environment); Directive 29/CT-TTg (2020); court judgments on king cobra cases from Than Uyen, Lai Chau (2024) and Bac Kan (2025); Bao Phap Luat on the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases warning (August 2026); Nhan Dan (2024), Tuoi Tre (2025), Thanh Tra (2025) and Lawyers of Vietnam (2025) on the village and its trade; Bao Phap Luat (2011) and VnExpress (2015) on the legend and festival; Tap chi Viet Duc (2024) on the festival dates; VietnamPlus, Nhan Dan and Tien Phong on the 2026 festival; prices from Vietnamnet (2024), The Wandering Wheatleys, Travelling Welshman, Together to Unknown and a PasGo restaurant listing; distances measured on OpenStreetMap; visitor observations from YouTube channels (2019–2026), counted only where three or more channels agree, except the two 2022 videos named on king cobra. Banner photo: tu nguyen / Pexels, cropped (Long Bien Bridge, not Le Mat).