A Thà Hín joint where I had a 87 cent bowl of cháo canh this morning. It's a soup of thin udon with pork that's found in Nghệ An, Hà Tĩnh and Quảng Bình, but practically unknown in the rest of Vietnam.

Though this woman talked to me in Vietnamese, she communicated with her Vietnamese husband, son and daughter in Lao. It's a safe bet she was born in Laos.