Once I realized what the ethnically pure groups of armed men shouting excitedly at me while I was hunting were, I changed my venues for hunting, and avoid areas where they have productive patches to harvest. It took a while, since I couldn't understand a word of Vietmanese, Cambodian, or Russian, and they seemed to not be interested in speaking English. I suppose they didn't need to in order to chase people away, as brandishing AK-47s gets the message across.

I first thought they were guarding marijuana grows, or methlabs in the forests, but learned of their mercenary mushrooming from buyers who kindly let me know not to harass their suppliers if I wanted to keep selling to them. I didn't, so don't, and pick shrooms elsewhere now. I hear Russians claim the area I was in yesterday and saw a cluster of tents that I widely skirted around. I also only found the one King Bolete, which was in a pretty hidden copse they must have missed in their morning harvests.

I might look further up the coast and farther from the village, where the costs and difficulties of running picking gangs might make the Ceps and Matsutakes less than profitable for their effort. I also haven't run into armed gangs since the prices of Matsutakes dropped, and don't think Ceps bring a high enough price to justify the risk of brushfire wars with competing gangs.

I also have no interest in commercial quantities of mushrooms, and a kilo or two of a given species satisfies my needs for the year. I can forage peacefully in areas they have no interest in with complete success, so I try to do that. I learned a long time ago that just because some people are assholes doesn't mean I have to butt heads with them. Other assholes can do that just fine, while I leave them to it.