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Seeing the lady selling banh mi, I thought she may have been Vietnamese, but she was Laotian. I bought a sandwich that had soft meatballs, mushy pate and three kinds of sauces. There were also cucumber and cilantro, like the Vietnamese version, but no carrot. Since we couldn't communicate, I handed her 20,000 kips, but she took just 6,000, and thought it was hilarious I assumed her banh mi could cost anywhere near 20,000 kips [$2.25].

She had a grill to cook her meatballs, so that's the source of the bluish smoke.



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